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STUDIES IN LOVE 
AND IN TERROR 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


THE HEART OF PENELOPE 

BARBARA REBELL 

THE PULSE OF LIFE 

THE UTTERMOST FARTHING 

STUDIES IN WIVES 

WHEN NO MAN PURSUETH 

JANE OGLANDER 

THE CHINK IN THE ARMOUR 

MARY PECHELL 


STUDIES IN LOVE 
AND IN TERROR 

BY 

MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1913 







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CONTENTS 


Price of Admiralty 

• 

PAGE 

. I 

The Child 

• 

• 99 

St. Catherine’s Eve 

* 

• 131 

The Woman from Purgatory 

> 

00 

Why They Married 

, , 

. 227 



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STUDIES IN LOVE 
AND IN TERROR 



PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 





PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


O mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps ! levons I’ancre ! 
Ce pays nous ennuie, O mort ! Appareillons ! ” 



LAIRE DE WISSANT, wife of Jacques 


V-/ de Wissant, Mayor of Falaise, stood in 
the morning sunlight, graceful with a proud, 
instinctive grace of poise and gesture, on a 
wind-blown path close to the edge of the cliff. 

At some little distance to her left rose the 
sloping, mansard roofs of the Pavilion de 
Wissant, the charming country house to which 
her husband had brought her, a seventeen 
year old bride, ten long years ago. 

She was now gazing eagerly out to sea, 
shielding her grey, heavy-lidded eyes with her 
right hand. From her left hand hung a steel 
chain, to which was attached a small key. 

A hot haze lay heavily over the great sweep 
of deep blue waters. It blotted out the low 
grey line on the horizon which, on the majority 
of each year’s days, reminds the citizens of 
Falaise how near England is to France. 


4 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


Jacques de Wissant had rejoiced in the 
entente cordiale^ if only because it brought 
such a stream of tourists to the old seaport 
town of which he was now Mayor. But his 
beautiful wife thought of the English as 
gallant foes rather than as friends. Was she 
not great-granddaughter to that admiral 
who at Trafalgar, when both his legs were 
shattered by chain-shot, bade his men place 
him in a barrel of bran that he might 
go on commanding, in the hour of defeat, to 
the end? 

And yet as Claire stood there, her eyes 
sweeping the sea for an as yet invisible craft, 
her heart seemed to beat rhythmically to the 
last verse of a noble English poem which the 
governess of her twin daughters had made 
them recite to her that very morning. How 
did it run ? Aloud she murmured : 

“Yet this inconstancy is such, 

As you too shall adore — ” 

and then she stopped, her quivering lips re- 
fusing to form the two concluding lines. 

To Claire de Wissant, that moving cry from 
a man’s soul was not dulled by familiarity, or 
hackneyed by common usage, and just now 
it found an intolerably faithful echo in her 
sad, rebellious heart, intensifying the anguish 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 5 

born of a secret and very bitter renuncia- 
tion. 

With an abrupt, restless movement she 
turned and walked on till her way along the 
path was barred by a curious obstacle. This 
was a small red-brick tower, built within a 
few feet of the edge of the cliff. It was an 
ugly blot on the beautiful stretch of down, all 
the uglier that the bricks and tiles had not yet 
had time to lose their hardness of line and 
colour in the salt wind. 

On the cliff side, the small circular building, 
open to wind, sky and sea, formed the un- 
natural apex of a natural stairway which led 
steeply, almost vertically, down to a deep 
land-locked cove below. The irregular steps 
carved by nature out of the chalk had been 
strengthened, and a rough protection added 
by means of knotted ropes fixed on either side 
of the dangerous descent. 

In the days when the steps had started 
sheer from a cleft in the cliff path, Jacques 
de Wissant had never used this way of reach- 
ing a spot which till last year had been his 
property, and his favourite bathing-place ; and 
he had also, in those same quiet days which 
now seemed so long • ago, forbidden his 
daughters to use that giddy way. But Claire 
was a fearless woman ; and she had always 


6 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

preferred the dangerous, ladder-like stairs 
which seemed, when gazed at from below, to 
hang ’twixt sky and sea. 

Now, however, she rarely availed herself of 
the right retained by her husband of using one 
of the two keys which unlocked the door set 
in the new brick tower, for the cove — only by 
courtesy could it be called a bay — had been 
chosen, owing to its peculiar position, naturally 
remote and yet close to a great maritime port, 
to be the quarters of the Northern Submarine 
Flotilla. 

Jacques de Wissant — and it was perhaps the 
only time in their joint life that his wife had 
entirely understood and sympathized with any 
action of her husband’s — had refused the com- 
pensation his Government had offered him ; 
more, in his cold, silent way, he had shown 
himself a patriot in a sense comparatively few 
modern men have the courage to be, namely, 
in that which affected both his personal com- 
fort and his purse. 

After standing for a moment on the peril- 
ously small and narrow platform which made ; 
the floor of the tower, Claire grasped firmly 
a strand of the knotted rope and began de- 
scending the long steps cut in the cliff side. 
She no longer gazed out to sea, instead she 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 7 

looked straight down into the pale green, sun- 
flecked waters of the little bay, where seven 
out of the nine submarines which composed 
the flotilla were lying half-submerged, as is 
their wont in harbour. 

A landsman, coming suddenly upon the 
cliff-locked pool, might have thought that the 
centuries had rolled back, and that the strange 
sight before him was a school of saurians lazily 
sunning themselves in the placid waters of a 
sea inlet where time had stood still. 

But no such vision came to Claire de Wis- 
sant. As she went down the cliff-side her 
lovely eyes rested on these sinister, man-created 
monsters with a feeling of sisterly, possessive 
affection. She had become so familiarly ac- 
quainted with each and all of them in the last 
few months ; she knew with such a curious, 
intimate knowledge where they differed, both 
from each other and also from other submarine 
craft, not only here, in these familiar waters, 
but in the waters of France’s great rival on 
the sea. . . . 

It ever gave her a thrill of pride to remember 
that it was France which first led the way in 
this, the most dangerous as also the most 
adventurous new arm of naval warfare ; and 
she rejoiced as fiercely, as exultantly as any 
of her sea-fighting forbears would have done 


8 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
in the terrible potentialities of destruction 
which each of these strange, grotesque-looking 
craft bore in Iheir narrow flanks. 

It was now the hour of the crews’ midday 
meal ; there were fewer men standing about 
than usual ; and so, after she had stepped 
down on the sandy strip of shore, and climbed 
the ladder leading to the old Napoleonic hulk 
which served as workshop and dwelling-place 
of the officers of the flotilla, Madame de 
Wissant for a few moments stood solitary, and 
looked musingly down into the waters of the 
bay. 

Each submarine, its long, fish-like shape 
lying prone in the almost still, transparent 
water, differed not only in size, but in make, 
from its fellows, and no two conning towers 
even were alike. 

Lying apart, as if sulking in a corner, was 
an example of the old “ Gymnote ” type of 
under-sea boat. She went by the name of the 
Carp^ and she was very squat, small and ugly, 
her telescopic conning tower being of hard 
canvas. 

To Claire, the Carp always recalled an old 
Breton woman she had known as a girl. That 
woman had given thirteen sons to France, and 
of the thirteen five had died while serving with 
the colours — three at sea and two in Tonkin — 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


9 


and a grateful country had given her a pension 
of ten francs a week, two francs for each dead 
son. 

Like that Breton woman, the ugly, sturdy 
little Carp had borne heroes in her womb, and 
like her, too, she had paid terrible toll of her 
sons to death. 

Occasionally, but very seldom now, the Carp 
was taken out to sea, and the men, strange to 
say, liked being in her, for they regarded her 
as a lucky boat ; she had never had what they 
called a serious accident. 

Sunk deeper in the water was the broad- 
backed Aheille^ significantly named ‘‘La Pet- 
roleuse,” the heroine of four explosions, no 
favourite with either crews or commanders ; 
and, cradled in a low dock on the farther strip 
of beach, was stretched the Triton^ looking 
like a huge fish which had panted itself to 
death. The Triton also was not a lucky boat ; 
she had been the theatre of a terrible mishap 
when, for some inexplicable cause, the conning 
tower had failed to close. Claire was always 
glad to see her safe in dock. 

Out in the middle of the bay was La Glor- 
ieuse^ a submarine of the latest type. Had she 
not lain so low, little more than her flying bridge 
being above the water, she would have put her 
elder sisters to shame, so exquisitely shaped 


10 STUDIES. IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

was she. Everything about La Glorieuse was 
made delicately true to scale, and she could 
carry a crew of over twenty men. But some- 
how Claire de Wissant did not care for this 
miniature leviathan as she did for the older 
kind of submarine, and, with more reason for 
his prejudice, the officer in charge of the 
flotilla shared her feeling. Commander Dupre 
thought La Glorieuse difficult to handle under 
water. But he had had the same opinion 
of the Neptune^ one of the two submarines 
which were out this fine August morning. . . . 

An eager ‘‘Bonjour, madame,” suddenly 
sounded in Claire de Wissant’s ear, and she 
turned quickly to find one of the younger 
officers at her elbow. 

‘‘The Neptune is a few minutes late,” he 
said smiling. “ I hope your sister has enjoyed 
her cruise ! ” He was looking with admiring 
and grateful eyes at the young wife of the 
Mayor of Falaise, for Claire de Wissant and 
her widowed sister, Madeleine Baudoin, were 
very kind and hospitable to the officers of the 
submarine flotilla. 

The life of both officers and men who volun- 
teer for this branch of the service is grim and 
arduous. And if this is generally true of them 
all, it was specially so of those who served 
under Commander Dupre. By a tacit agree- 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 11 

ment with their chief, they took no part in the 
summer gaieties of the watering-place which 
has grown up round the old port of Falaise, 
and out of duty hours they would have led 
dull lives indeed had it not been for the hospi- 
tality shown them by the owners of the Pavil- 
ion de Wissant, and for the welcome which 
awaited them in the freer, gayer atmosphere of 
Madame Baudoin’s villa, the Chalet des Dunes. 

Madeleine Baudoin was a lively, cheerful 
woman, younger in nature if not in years than 
her beautiful sister, and so she was naturally 
more popular with the younger officers. They 
had felt especially flattered when Madame 
Baudoin had allowed herself to be persuaded 
to go out for a couple of hours in the Neptune ; 
till this morning neither of the sisters had ever 
ventured out to sea in a submarine. 

And now ’twas true that the Neptune had 
been out longer than her commander had said 
she would be, but no touch of fear brushed 
Claire de Wissant ; she would have trusted 
what she held most precious in the world — her 
children — to Commander Dupre’s care, and a 
few moments after her companion had spoken 
she suddenly saw the little tricolor, for which 
her keen eyes had for long swept the sea, 
bravely riding the waves, and making straight 
for the bay. 


12 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

The flag moving swiftly over the surface of 
tjie blue water was a curious, almost an un- 
canny sight ; one which never failed to fill 
Claire with a kind of spiritual exaltation. For 
the tiny strip of waving colour was a symbol 
of the gallantry, of the carelessness of danger, 
lying under the dancing, sun-flecked ripples 
which alone proved that the tricolor was not 
some illusion of sorcery. 

And then, as if the submarine had been 
indeed a sentient, living thing, the Neptune 
lifted her great shield-like back up out of the 
sea and glided through the narrow neck of 
the bay, and so close under the long deck on 
which Madame de Wissant and her companion 
were standing. 

The eager, busy hum of work slackened — 
discipline is not perhaps quite so taut in the 
French as it is in the British Navy — for both 
men and officers were one and all eager to see 
the lady who had ventured out in the Neptune 
with their commander. Only those actually on 
board had seen Madame Baudoin embark ; 
there w^as a long, rough jetty close to her 
house, the lonely Chalet des Dunes, and it 
was from there the submarine had picked up 
her honoured passenger. 

But when Commander Dupre’s stern, sun- 
burnt face suddenly appeared above the con- 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 13 

ning tower, the men vanished as if by enchant- 
ment, while the eager, busy hum began again, 
much as if a lever, setting this human machinery 
in motion, had been touched by some titanic 
finger. 

The officers naturally held their ground. 

There was a look of strain in the Com- 
mander’s blue eyes, and his mouth was set in 
hard lines ; a thoughtful onlooker would have 
suspected that the exciting, dangerous life he 
led was trying his nerves. His men knew 
better ; still, though they had no clue to the 
cause which had changed him, they all knew 
he had changed greatly of late ; to them in- 
dividually he had become kinder, more human, 
and that heightened their regret that he was 
now quitting the Northern Flotilla. 

Commander Dupre had asked to be trans- 
ferred to the Toulon Submarine Station ; some 
experiments were being made there which 
he was anxious to watch. He was leaving 
Falaise on the morrow. 

Claire de Wissant reddened, and a gleam 
leapt into her eyes as she met the naval 
officer’s grave, measuring glance. But very 
soon he looked away from her, for now he 
was bending down, putting out a hand to help 
his late passenger to step from the conning 
tower. 


14 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Smiling, breathless, a little dishevelled, her 
grey linen skirt crumpled, Madame Baudoin 
looked round her, dazed for the moment by 
the bright sunlight. Then she called out gaily : 

“Well, Claire! Here I am — alive and very, 
very hot ! ” 

And as she jumped off the slippery flank of 
the Neptune^ she gave herself and her crumpled 
gown a little shake, and made a slight, playful 
grimace. 

The bright young faces round her broke into 
broad grins — those officers who volunteer for 
the submarine services of the world are chosen 
young, and they are merry boys. 

“You may well laugh, messieurs,” — she 
threw them all a lively challenging glance — 
“when I tell you that to-day, for the first 
time in my life, I acknowledge masculine su- 
premacy ! I think that you will admit that we 
women are not afraid of pain, but the dis- 
comfort, the — the stuffiness ? Ah, no — I could 
not have borne much longer the horrible dis- 
comfort and stuffiness of that dreadful little 
Neptune of yours ! ” 

Protesting voices rose on every side. The 
Neptune was not uncomfortable ! The Neptune 
was not stuffy ! 

“And I understand” — again she made a 
little grimace — “that it is quite an exceptional 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


15 


thing for the crew to be consoled, as I was to- 
day, by an ice-pail ! ” 

“A most exceptional thing,” said the 
youngest lieutenant, with a sigh. His name 
was Paritot, and he also had been out with 
the Neptune that morning. ‘‘In fact, it 
only happens in that week which sees four 
Thursdays — or when we have a lady on board, 
madame ! ” 

“What a pity it is,” said another, “that 
the old woman who left a legacy to the in- 
ventor who devises a submarine life-saving 
apparatus didn’t leave us instead a cream-ice 
allowance ! It would have been a far more 
practical thing to do.” 

Madame Baudoin turned quickly to Com- 
mander Dupre, who now stood silent, smile- 
less, at her sister’s side. 

“Surely you’re going to try for this extra- 
ordinary prize?” she cried. “I’m sure that 
you could easily devise something which would 
gain the old lady’s legacy.” 

“I, madame?” he answered with a start, 
almost as if he were wrenching himself free 
from some deep abstraction. “ I should not 
think of trying to do such a thing ! It would 
be a mere waste of time. Besides, there is no 
real risk — no risk that we are not prepared to 
run.” He looked proudly round at the eager. 


16 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


laughing faces of the youngsters who were, till 
to-morrow night, still under his orders. 

‘‘The old lady meant very well,” he went 
on, and for the first time since he had stepped 
out of the conning tower Commander Dupre 
smiled. “And I hope with all my heart that 
some poor devil will get her money ! But I 
think I may promise you that it will not be an 
officer in the submarine service. We are too 
busy, we have too many really important things 
to do, to worry ourselves about life-saving ap- 
pliances. Why, the first thing we should do if 
pressed for room would be to throw our life- 
helmets overboard ! ” 

“Has one of the life-helmets ever saved a 
life?” 

It was Claire who asked the question in her 
low, vibrating voice. 

Commander Dupre turned to her, and he 
flushed under his sunburn. It was the first 
time she had spoken to him that day. 

“No, never,” he answered shortly. And 
then, after'^^d pause, he added, “the conditions 
in which these life-helmets could be utilized 
only occur in one accident in a thousand ” 

“Still, they would have saved our com- 
rades in the Lutin^"' objected Lieutenant 
Paritot. 

The Lutin ? There was a moment’s silence. 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


17 


The evocation of that tricksy sprite, the Ariel 
of French mythology, whose name, by an 
ironical chance, had been borne by the most 
ill-fated of all submarine craft, seemed to bring 
the shadow of death athwart them all. 

Madeleine Baudoin felt a sudden tremor of 
retrospective fear. She was glad she had not 
remembered the Lutin when she was sitting, 
eating ices, and exchanging frivolous, chaffing 
talk with Lieutenant Paritot in that chamber 
of little ease, the drum-like interior of the 
NepUme^ where not even she, a small woman, 
could stand upright. 

‘‘Well, well! We must not keep you from 
your dejeuner!'' she cried, shaking off the 
queer, disturbing sensation. “ I have to thank 
you for — shall I say a very interesting ex- 
perience ? I am too honest to say an agreeable 
one ! ” 

She shook hands with Commander Dupre 
and Lieutenant Paritot, the officers who had 
accompanied her on what had been, now that 
she looked back on it, perhaps a mc.e perrlous 
adventure than she had realized. 

“You’re coming with me, Claire?” She 
looked at her sister — it was a tender, anxious, 
loving look ; Madeleine Baudoin had been the 
eldest, and Claire de Wissant the youngest, of 
a Breton admiral’s family of three daughters 


18 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


and four sons ; they two were devoted to one 
another. 

Claire shook her head. I came to tell you 
that I can’t lunch with you to-day,” she said 
slowly. ‘‘ I promised I would be back by half- 
past twelve.” 

‘‘Then we shall not meet till to-morrow?” 

Claire repeated mechanically, “No, not till 
to-morrow, dear Madeleine.” 

“May I row you home, madame?” Lieu- 
tenant Paritot asked Madeleine eagerly. 

“Certainly, mon ami.'' 

And so, a very few minutes later, Claire de 
Wissant and Commander Dupre were left alone 
together — alone, that is, save for fifty inquisi- 
tive, if kindly, pairs of eyes which saw them 
from every part of the bay. 

At last she held out her hand. “ Good-bye, 
then, till to-morrow,” she said, her voice so 
low as to be almost inaudible. . 

“ No, not good-bye yet ! ” he cried imperi- 
ously. “You must let me take you up the 
cliff to-day. It may be — I suppose it is — the 
last time I shall be able to do so.” 

Hardly waiting for her murmured word of 
assent, he led the way up the steep, ladder-like 
stairway cut in the cliff side ; half-way up 
there were some very long steps, and it was 
from above that help could best be given. He 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


19 


longed with a fierce, aching longing that she 
would allow him to take her two hands in his 
and draw her up those high, precipitous steps. 
But of late Claire had avoided accepting from 
him, her friend, this simple, trifling act of 
courtesy. And now twice he turned and held out 
a hand, and twice she pretended not to see it. 

At last, within ten feet of the top of the 
cliff, they came tQ the steepest, rudest step of 
all — a place some might have thought very 
dangerous. 

Commander Dupre bent down and looked 
into Claire’s uplifted face. ‘‘Let me at least 
help you up here,” he said hoarsely. 

She shook her head obstinately — but sud- 
denly he felt her tremulous lips touch his lean, 
sinewy hand, and her hot tears fall upon his 
fingers. 

He gave a strangled cry of pain and of 
pride, of agony and of rapture, and for a long 
moment he battled with an awful temptation. 
How easy it would be to gather her into his 
arms, and, with her face hidden on his breast, 
take a great leap backwards into nothing- 
ness. . . . 

But he conquered the persuasive devil who 
had been raised — women do not know how 
easy it is to rouse this devil — by Claire’s 
moment of piteous self-revelation. 


20 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


And at last they stood together on the nar- 
row platform where she, less than an hour ago, 
had stood alone. 

Sheltered by the friendly, ugly red walls of 
the little tower, they were as remote from their 
kind as if on a rock in the midst of the sea. 
More, she was in his power in a sense she had 
never been before, for she had herself broken 
down the fragile barrier with which she had 
hitherto known how to keep him at bay. But he 
felt rather than saw that it was herself she would 
despise if now, at the eleventh hour, he took 
advantage of that tremulous kiss of renuncia- 
tion, of those hot tears of anguished parting — 
and so — ^‘Then at eleven o’clock to-morrow 
morning ? ” he said, and he felt as if it was 
some other man, not he himself, who was say- 
ing the words. He took her hand in farewell 
-^so much he could allow himself — and all 
unknowing crushed her fingers in his strong, 
convulsive grasp. 

‘^Yes,” she said, ‘‘at eleven to-morrow 
morning Madeleine and I will be waiting out 
on the end of the jetty.” 

He thought he detected a certain hesitancy 
in her voice. 

“Are you sure you still wish to come?” he 
said gravely. “ I would not wish you to do 
anything that would cause you any fear — or 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 21 

any discomfort. Your sister evidently found it 
a very trying experience to-day ” 

Claire smiled. Her hand no longer hurt her ; 
her fingers had become quite numb. 

“Afraid?” she said, and there was a little 
scorn in her voice. And then, “Ah me! I 
only wish that there were far more risk than 
there is about that which we are going to do 
together to-morrow.” She was in a dangerous 
mood, poor soul — the mood that raises a devil 
in men. But perhaps her good angel came to 
help her, for suddenly, “ Forgive me,” she said 
humbly. “You know I did not mean that! 
Only cowards wish for death.” 

And then, looking at him, she averted her 
eyes, for they showed her that, if that were so, 
Dupre was indeed a craven. 

revoir,''' she whispered; au revoir till 
to-morrow morning.” 

When half-way through the door, leading on 
to the lonely stretch of down, she turned round 
suddenly. “ I do not want you to bring any 
ices for me to-morrow.” 

“ I never thought of doing so,” he said 
simply. And the words pleased Claire as much 
as anything just then could pleasure her, for 
they proved that her friend did not class her 
in his mind with those women who fear dis- 
comfort more than danger. 


22 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

It had been her own wish to go out with 
Commander Dupre for his last cruise in northern 
waters. She had not had the courage to deny 
herself this final glimpse of him — they were 
never to meet again after to-morrow — in his 
daily habit as he lived. 


II 

At nine o’clock the next morning Jacques de 
Wissant stood in his wife’s boudoir. 

It was a strange and beautiful room, likely 
to linger in the memory of those who knew its 
strange and beautiful mistress. 

The walls were draped with old Persian 
shawls, the furniture was of red Chinese lacquer, 
a set acquired in the East by some Norman 
sailing man unnumbered years ago, and bought 
by Claire de Wissant out of her own slender 
income not long after her marriage. 

Pale blue and faded yellow silk cushions 
softened the formal angularity of the wide 
cane-seated couch and low, square chairs. 
There was a deep crystal bowl of midsummer 
flowering roses on the table, laden with books, 
by which Claire often sat long hours reading 
poetry and volumes written by modern poets 
and authors of whom her husband had only 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 23 

vaguely heard and of whom he definitely dis- 
approved. 

The window was wide open, and there floated 
in from the garden, w'hich sloped away to the 
edge and indeed over the crumbling cliff, 
fragrant, salt-laden odours, dominated by the 
clean, sharp scent thrown from huge shrubs 
of red and white geraniums. The balls of 
blossom set against the belt of blue sea, formed 
a band of waving tricolor. 

But Jacques de Wissant was unconscious, 
uncaring of the beauty round him, either in the 
room or without, and when at last he walked 
forward to the window, his face hardened as 
his eyes instinctively sought out the spot where, 
if hidden from his sight, he knew there lay the 
deep transparent waters of the little bay which 
had been selected as providing ideal quarters 
for the submarine flotilla. 

He had eagerly assented to the sacrifice of 
his land, and, what meant far more to him, 
of his privacy ; but now he would have given 
much — and he was a careful man — to have had 
the submarine station swept away, transferred 
to the other side of Falaise. 

Down there, out of sight of the Pavilion, 
and yet but a few minutes away (if one used 
the dangerous cliff-stairway), dwelt Jacques 
de Wissant’s secret foe, for the man of whom he 


24 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

was acutely, miserably jealous was Commander 
Dupre, of whose coming departure he as yet 
knew nothing. 

The owner of the Pavilion de Wissant 
seldom entered the room where he now stood 
impatiently waiting for his wife, and he never 
did so without looking round him with dis- 
taste, and remembering with an odd, wistful 
feeling what it had been like in his mother’s 
time. Then ‘Me boudoir de madame ” had 
reflected the tastes and simple interests of an 
old-fashioned provincial lady born in the 
year that Louis Philippe came to the throne. 
Greatly did the man now standing there 
prefer the room as it had been to what it 
was now ! 

The heavy, ugly furniture which had been 
there in the days of his lonely youth, for he 
had been an only child, was now in the school- 
room where the twin daughters of the house, 
Clairette and Jacqueline, did their lessons with 
Miss Doughty, their English governess. 

Clairette and Jacqueline? Jacques de Wis- 
sant’s lantern-jawed, expressionless face quick- 
ened into feeling as he thought of his two 
little girls. They were the pride, as well as 
the only vivid pleasure, of his life. All that 
he dispassionately admired in his wife was, 
so he sometimes told himself with satisfaction. 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 25 

repeated in his daughters. Clairette and 
Jacqueline had inherited their mothers look 
of race, her fastidiousness and refinement of 
bearing, while fortunately lacking Claire’s 
dangerous personal beauty, her touch of eccen- 
tricity, and her discontent with life — or rather 
with the life which Jacques de Wissant, in 
spite of a gnawing ache and longing that 
nothing could still or assuage, yet found 
good. 

The Mayor of Falaise looked strangely out 
of keeping with his present surroundings, at 
least so he would have seemed to the eye of 
any foreigner, especially of any Englishman, 
who had seen him standing there. 

He was a narrowly built man, forty-three 
years of age, and his clean-shaven, rather 
fleshy face was very pale. On this hot August 
morning he was dressed in a light grey frock- 
coat, under which he wore a yellow waistcoat, 
and on his wife’s writing-table lay his tall hat 
and lemon-coloured gloves. 

As mayor of his native town — a position he 
owed to an historic name and to his wealth, 
and not to his very moderate Republican 
opinions — his duties included the celebration 
of civil marriages, and to-day, it being the 
14th of August, the eve of the Assumption, 
and still a French national fete, there were to 


26 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
be a great many weddings celebrated in the 
Hotel de Ville. 

Jacques de Wissant considered that he owed 
it to himself, as well as to his fellow-citizens, 
to appear ‘‘correctly” attired on such occa- 
sions. He had a deep, wordless contempt for 
those of his acquaintances who dressed on 
ceremonial occasions “a Tanglaise,” that is, 
in loose lounge suits and straw hats. 

Suddenly there broke on his ear the sound 
of a low, full voice, singing. It came from 
the next room, his wife’s bedroom, and the 
mournful passionate words of an old sea ballad 
rang out, full of a desolate pain and sense of 
bitter loss. 

The sound irritated him shrewdly, and there 
came back to him a fragment of conversation 
he had not thought of for ten years. During 
a discussion held between his father and 
mother in this very room about their adored 
only son’s proposed marriage with Claire de 
Kergouet, his father had said : “There is one 
thing I do not much care for ; she is, they 
say, very musical, and Jacques, even as a baby, 
howled like a dog whenever he heard sing- 
ing ! ” And his mother had laughed, Mon 
ami^ you cannot expect to get perfection, even 
for our Jacques ! ” And Claire, so he now 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 27 

admitted unwillingly to himself, had never 
troubled him overmuch with her love of 
music. . . . 

He knocked twice, sharply, on his wife’s 
door. 

The song broke short with an almost cruel 
suddenness, and yet there followed a percep- 
tible pause before he heard her say, ‘‘Come 
in.” 

And then, as Jacques de Wissant slowly 
turned the handle of the door, he saw his 
wife, Claire, before she saw him. He had a 
vision, that is, of her as she appeared when 
she believed herself to be, if not alone, then 
in sight of eyes that were indifferent, unwatch- 
ful. But Jacques’ eyes, which his wife’s widowed 
sister, the frivolous Parisienne, Madeleine Bau- 
doin, had once unkindly compared to fishes’ 
eyes, were now filled with a watchful, sus- 
picious light which gave a tragic mask to his 
pallid, plain-featured face. 

Claire de Wissant was standing before a 
long, narrow mirror placed at right angles to 
a window looking straight out to sea. Her 
short, narrow, dark blue skirt and long blue 
silk jersey silhouetted her slender figure, the 
figure which remained so supple, so — so girlish, 
in spite of her nine-year-old daughters. There 
was something shy and wild, untamed and yet 


28 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
beckoning, in the oval face now drawn with 
pain and sleeplessness, in the grey, almond- 
shaped eyes reddened with secret tears, and in 
the firm, delicately modelled mouth. 

She was engaged in tucking up her dark, 
curling hair under a grey yachting cap, and, 
for a few moments, she neither spoke nor 
looked round to see who was standing framed 
in the door. But when, at last, she turned 
away from the mirror and saw her husband, 
the colour, rushing into her pale face, caused 
an unbecoming flush to cover it. 

I thought it was one of the children,” she 
said, a little breathlessly. And then she waited, 
assuming, or so Jacques thought, an air at 
once of patience and of surprise which sharply 
angered him. 

Then her look of strain, nay, of positive 
illness, gave him an uneasy twinge of dis- 
comfort. Could it be anxiety concerning her 
second sister, Marie-Anne, who, married to an 
Italian officer, was now ill of scarlet fever at 
Mantua? Two days ago Claire had begged 
very earnestly to be allowed to go and nurse 
Marie-Anne. But he, Jacques, had refused, 
not unkindly, but quite firmly. Claire s duty 
of course lay at Falaise, with her husband and 
children ; not at Mantua, with her sister. 

Suddenly she again broke silence. ‘‘Well?” 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


29 


she said. ‘‘Is there anything you wish to 
tell me ? ” They had never used the familiar 
“thee” and “thou” the one to the other, 
for at the time of their marriage an absurd 
whim of fashion had ordained on the part 
of French wives and husbands a return 
to eighteenth-century formality, and Claire 
had chosen, in that one instance, to follow 
fashion. 

She added, seeing that he still did not 
speak, “ I am lunching with my sister to-day, 
but I shall be home by three o’clock.” She 
spoke with the chill civility a lady shows a 
stranger. Claire seldom allowed herself to 
be on the defensive when speaking to her 
husband. 

Jacques de Wissant frowned. He did not 
like either of his wife’s sisters, neither the one 
who was now lying ill in Italy, nor his widowed 
sister-in-law, Madeleine Baudoin. In the villa 
which she had hired for the summer, and which 
stood on a lonely stretch of beach beyond the 
bay, Madeleine often entertained the officers 
of the submarine flotilla, and this, from her 
brother-in-law’s point of view, was very far 
from “correct” conduct on the part of one 
who could still pass as a young widow. 

In response to his frown there had come a 
slight, mocking smile on Claire’s face. 


30 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

I suppose you are on your way to some 
important town function ? ” ^ 

She disliked the town of Falaise, the town- 
folk bored her, and she hated the vast old 
family house in the Market Place, where she 
had to spend each winter. 

‘^To-day is the fourteenth of August,” ob- 
served Jacques de Wissant in his deliberate 
voice; “and I have a great many marriages 
to celebrate this morning.” 

“Yes, I suppose that is so.” And again 
Claire de Wissant spoke with the courteous 
indifference, the lack of interest in her hus- 
band’s concerns, which she had early schooled 
him to endure. 

But all at once there came a change in her 
voice, in her manner. “Why to-day — the 
fourteenth^ of August — is our wedding day! 
How stupid of me to forget ! We must tell 
Jacqueline and Clairette. It will amuse 
them ” 

She uttered the words a little breathlessly, 
and as she spoke, Jacques de Wissant walked 
quickly forward into the room. As he did so 
his wife moved abruptly away from where she 
had been standing, thus maintaining the dis- 
tance between them. 

But Claire de Wissant need not have been 
afraid ; her husband had his own strict code of 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


31 


manners, and to this code he ever remained 
faithful. He possessed a remarkable mastery 
of his emotions, and he had always showed 
with regard to herself so singular a power of 
self-restraint that Claire, not unreasonably, 
doubted if he had any emotions to master, any 
passionate feeling to restrain. 

All he now did was to take a shagreen case 
out of his breast pocket and hold it out to- 
wards her. 

‘‘Claire,” he said quietly, “I have brought 
you, in memory of our wedding day, a little 
gift which I hope you will like. It is a medal- 
lion of the children.” And as she at last 
advanced towards him, he pressed a spring, 
and revealed a dull gold medal on which, 
modelled in high relief, and superposed the 
one on the other, were Clairette’s and Jacque- 
line’s childish, delicately pure profiles. 

A softer, kindlier light came into Claire de 
Wissant’s sad grey eyes. She held out a 
hesitating hand — and Jacques de Wissant, 
before placing his gift in it, took that soft hand 
in his, and, bending rather awkwardly, kissed it 
lightly. In France, even now, a man will 
often kiss a woman’s hand by way of conven- 
tional, respectful homage. But to Claire the 
touch of her husband’s lips was hateful — so 
hateful indeed that she had to make an instant 


32 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


eflfort to hide the feeling of physical repulsion 
with which that touch had suddenly engulfed her 
in certain dark recesses of memory and revolt. 

“It is a charming medallion,” she said 
hurriedly, “quite a work of art, Jacques; and 
I thank you for having thought of it. It gives 
me great — very great pleasure.” 

And then something happened which was 
to her so utterly unexpected that she gave a 
stifled cry of pain — almost it seemed of fear. 

As she forced herself to look straight into 
her husband s face, the anguish in her own sore 
heart unlocked the key to his, and she perceived 
with_the eyes of the soul, which see, when they 
are not holden, so much that is concealed from 
the eyes of the body, the suffering, the dumb 
longing she had never allowed herself to know 
were there. 

For the first time since her marriage — since 
that wedding day of which this was the tenth 
anniversary — Claire felt pity for Jacques as 
well as for herself. For the first time her 
rebellious heart acknowledged that her hus- 
band also was enmeshed in a web of tragic 
circumstance. 

“Jacques?” she cried. “Oh, Jacques!” 
And as she so uttered his name twice, there 
came a look of acute distress and then of 
sudden resolution on her face. “ I wish you 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


33 


to know,” she exclaimed, ‘‘that — that — if I were 
a wicked woman I should perhaps be to you 
a better wife ! ” Thanks to the language in 
which she spoke, there was a play on the 
word — that word which in French signifies 
woman as well as wife. 

He stared at her, and uttered no word of 
answer, of understanding, in response to her 
strange speech. 

At one time, not lately, but many years ago, 
Claire had sometimes tried his patience by the 
odd, unreasonable things she said, and once, 
stung beyond bearing, he had told her so. 
Remembering those cold, measured words of 
rebuke, she now caught with quick, exultant re- 
lief at the idea that Jacques had not under- 
stood the half-confession wrung from her by her 
sudden vision of his pain ; and she swung back 
to a belief she had always held till just now, 
the belief that he was dull— dull and unper- 
ceptive. 

With a nervous smile she turned again to 
her mirror, and then Jacques de Wissant, with 
his wife’s enigmatic words ringing in his ears, 
abruptly left the room. 

As if pursued by some baneful presence, he 
hastened through Claire’s beautiful boudoir, 
across the dining-room hung with the Gobelins 
3 


34 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


tapestries which his wife had brought him as 
part of her slender dower, and so into the oval 
hall which formed the centre of the house. 

And there Jacques de Wissant waited for a 
while, trying to still and to co-ordinate his 
troubled thoughts and impressions. 

Ah yes, he had understood — understood only 
too well Claire’s strange, ambiguous utter- 
ance ! There are subtle, unbreathed tempta- 
tions which all men and all women, when 
tortured by jealousy, not only understand but 
divine before they are actually in being. 

Jacques de Wissant now believed that he was 
justified of the suspicions of which he had been 
ashamed. His wife — moved by some obscure 
desire for self-revelation to which he had had 
no clue — had flung at him the truth. 

Yes, without doubt Claire could have made 
him happy — so little would have contented his 
hunger for her — had she been one of those 
light women of whom he sometimes heard, 
who go from their husbands’ kisses to those of 
their lovers. 

But if he sometimes, nay, often heard of 
them, Jacques de Wissant knew nothing of 
such women. The men of his race had known 
how to acquire honest wives, aye, and keep 
them so. There had never been in the de 
Wissant family any of those ugly scandals 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


35 


which stain other clans, and which are re- 
membered over generations in French pro- 
vincial towns. Those scandals which, if they 
provoke a laugh and cruel sneer when dis- 
cussed by the indifferent, are recalled with 
long faces and anxious whisperings when a 
young girls future is being discussed, and which 
make the honourable marriage of daughters 
difficult of achievement. 

Jacques de Wissant thanked the God of his 
fathers that Claire had nothing in common 
with such women as those : he thought he did 
not need her assurance to know that his honour, 
in the usual, narrow sense of the phrase, was 
safe in her hands, but still her strange, im- 
prudent words of half-avowal racked him with 
jealous and, yes, suspicious pain. 

Fortunately for him, he was a man burdened 
with much business, and so at last he looked 
at his watch. Why, it was getting late — 
terribly late, and he prided himself on his 
punctuality. Still, if he started now, at once, 
he would be at the Hotel de Ville a few minutes 
before ten o’clock, the time when the first of 
the civil marriages he had to celebrate that 
morning was timed to take place. 

Without passing through the house, he made 
his way rapidly round by the gardens to the 
road, winding ribbon-wise behind the cliffs, 


36 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

where his phaeton was waiting for him ; for 
Jacques de Wissant had as yet resisted the 
wish of his wife and the advice of those of 
his friends who considered that he ought to 
purchase an automobile : driving had been 
from boyhood one of his few pleasures and 
accomplishments. 

But as he drove, keeping his fine black bays 
well in hand, the five miles into the town, and 
tried to fix his mind on a commercial problem 
of great importance with which he would be 
expected to deal that day, Jacques de Wissant 
found it impossible to think of any matter 
but that which for the moment filled his 
heart to the exclusion of all else. That 
matter concerned his own relations to his 
wife, and his wife’s relations to Commander 
Dupre. 

This gentleman of France was typical in 
more than one sense of his nation and of his 
class — quite unlike, that is, to the fancy picture 
which foreigners draw of the average French- 
man. Reserved and cold in manner ; proud, 
with an intense but never openly expressed 
pride in his name and of what the bearers of it 
had achieved for their country ; obstinate and 
narrow as are apt to be all human beings whose 
judgment is never questioned by those about 
them, Jacques de Wissant’s fetish was his 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


37 


personal honour and the honour of his name 
— of the name of Wissant. 

In his distress and disturbance of mind — for 
his wife’s half confession had outraged his sense 
of what was decorous and fitting — his memory 
travelled over the map of his past life, aye, and 
even beyond the boundaries of his own life. 

Before him lay spread retrospectively the 
story of his parents’ uneventful, happy marriage. 
They had been mated in the good old French 
way, that is, up to their wedding morning they 
had never met save in the presence of their 
respective parents. And yet — and yet how 
devoted they had been to each other ! So 
completely one in thought, in interest, in sym- 
pathy had they grown that when, after thirty- 
three years of married life, his father had died, 
Jacques’ mother had not known how to go on 
living. She had slipped out of life a few 
months later, and as she lay dying she had 
used a very curious expression: ‘‘My faithful 
companion is calling me,” she had said to her 
only child, “and you must not try, dear son, 
to make me linger on the way.” 

Now, to-day, Jacques de Wissant asked him- 
self with perplexed pain and anger, why it was 
that his parents had led so peaceful, so dig- 
nified, so wholly contented a married life, while 
he himself ? 


38 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


And yet his own marriage had been a love 
match — or so those about him had all said with 
nods and smiles — love marriages having sud- 
denly become the fashion in the rich provincial 
world of which he had then been one of the 
heirs-apparent. 

H is old-fashioned mother would have preferred 
as daughter-in-law any one of half a dozen girls 
who belonged to her own good town of Falaise, 
and whom she had known from childhood. But 
Jacques had been difficult to please, and he was 
already thirty-two when he had met, by a mere 
chance, Claire de Kergouet at her first ball. 
She was only seventeen, with but the promise 
of a beauty which was now in exquisite flower, 
and he had decided, there and then, in the 
course of two hours, that this demoiselle de 
Kergouet was alone worthy of becoming 
Madame Jacques de Wissant. 

And on the whole his prudent parents had 
blessed his choice, for the girl was of the 
best Breton stock, and came of a family famed in 
the naval annals of France. Unluckily Claire 
de Kergouet had had no dowry to speak of, 
for her father, the Admiral, had been a spend- 
thrift, and, as is still the reckless Breton fashion, 
father of a large family — three daughters and 
four sons. But Jacques de Wissant had not 
allowed his parents to give the matter of 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 39 

Claire’s fortune more than a regretful thought 
— indeed, he had done further, he had ‘‘recog- 
nized ” a larger dowry than she brought him to 
save the pride of her family. 

But Claire — he could not help thinking of 
it to-day with a sense of bitter injury — had 
never seemed grateful, had never seemed 
to understand all that had been done for 
her. . . . 

Had he not poured splendid gifts upon her 
in the beginning of their married life ? And, 
what had been far more difficult, had he not, 
within reason, contented all her strange whims 
and fantasies ? 

But nought had availed him to secure 
even a semblance of that steadfast, warm 
affection, that sincere interest and pride in 
his concerns which is all such a Frenchman as 
was Jacques de Wissant expects, or indeed 
desires, of his wedded wife. Had Claire been 
such a woman, Jacques’ own passion for her 
would soon have dulled into a reasonable, com- 
fortable affection. But his wife’s cool aloofness 
had kept alive the hidden fires, the more 
— so ironic are the tricks which sly Dame 
Nature plays — that for many years past he had 
troubled her but very little with his company. 

Outwardly Claire de Wissant did her duty, 
entertaining his friends and relations on such 


40 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

occasions as was incumbent on her, and show- 
ing herself a devoted and careful mother to the 
twin daughters who formed the only vital link 
between her husband and herself. But inwardly? 
Inwardly they two were strangers. 

And yet only during the last few months had 
Jacques de Wissant ever felt jealous of his 
wife. There had been times when he had been 
angered by the way in which her young beauty, 
her indefinable, mysterious charm, had attracted 
the very few men with whom she was brought 
into contact. But Claire, so her husband had 
always acknowledged to himself, was no flirt ; 
she was ever perfectly ‘‘correct.’’ 

Correct was a word dear to Jacques de 
Wissant. It was one which he used as a 
synonym for great things — things such as 
honour, fineness of conduct, loyalty. 

But fate had suddenly introduced a stranger 
into the dull, decorous life of the Pavilion de 
Wissant, and it was he, Jacques himself, who 
had brought him there. 

How bitter it was to look back and remember 
how much he had liked — liked because he had 
respected — Commander Dupre ! He now hated 
and feared the naval officer, and he would have 
given much to have been able to despise him. 
But that Jacques de Wissant could not 
do. Commander Dupr6 was still all that 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 41 

he had taken him to be when he first 
made him free of his house — a brilliant 
officer, devoted to his profession, already noted 
in the Service as having made several import- 
ant inprovements in submarine craft. 

From the first it had seemed peculiar, to 
Jacques deWissant’s mind unnatural, that such a 
man as was Dupr6 should be so keenly interested 
in music and in modern literature. But so it was, 
and it had been owing to these strange, unto- 
ward tastes that Commander Dupre and Claire 
had become friends. 

He now reminded himself, for the hundredth 
time, that he had begun by actually approving 
of the acquaintance between his wife and the 
naval officer — an acquaintance which he had 
naturally supposed would be of the most 
‘‘ correct ” nature. 

Then, without warning, there came an hour 
— nay, a moment, when in that twilight hour 
which the French call ‘‘’Twixt dog and wolf,’^ 
the most torturing and shameful of human 
passions, jealousy, had taken possession of 
Jacques de Wissant, disintegrating, rather 
than shattering, the elaborate fabric of his 
House of Life, that house in which he had 
always dwelt so snugly and unquestioningly 
ensconced. 

He had come home after a long afternoon 


42 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

spent at the Hotel de Ville to learn with tepid 
pleasure that there was a visitor, Commander 
Dupr^, in the house, and as he had come 
hurrying towards his wife’s boudoir, Jacques 
had heard Claire’s low, deep voice and 
the other’s ardent, eager tones mingling 
together. . . . 

And then as he, the husband, had opened 
the door, they had stopped speaking, their 
words clipped as if a sword had fallen between 
them. At the same moment a servant had 
brought a lamp into the twilit room, and 
Jacques had seen the ravaged face of Com- 
mander Dupr4, a fair, tanned face full of revolt 
and of longing leashed. Claire had remained 
in shadow, but her eyes, or so the interloper 
thought he perceived, were full of tears. 

Since that spring evening the Mayor of 
Falaise had not had an easy moment. While 
scorning to act the spy upon his wife, he was 
for ever watching her, and keeping an eager and 
yet scarcely conscious count of her movements. 

True, Commander Dupr6 had soon ceased 
to trouble the owner of the Pavilion de Wissant 
by his presence. The younger officers came 
and went, but since that hour, laden with 
unspoken drama, their commander only came 
when good breeding required him to pay 
a formal call on his nearest neighbour and 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 43 

sometime host. But Claire saw Dupr6 con- 
stantly at the Chalet des Dunes, her sister’s 
house, and she was both too proud and too 
indifferent, it appeared, to her husband’s view 
of what a young married woman’s conduct 
should be, to conceal the fact. 

This openness on his wife’s part was at once 
Jacques’ consolation and opportunity for end^ 
less self-torture. 

For three long miserable months he had 
wrestled with those ignoble questionings only 
the jealous know, now accepting as probable, 
now rejecting with angry self-rebuke, the 
thought that his wife suffered, perhaps even 
returned, Duprd’s love. And to-day, instead 
of finding his jealousy allayed by her half- 
confidence, he felt more wretched than he had 
ever been. 

His horses responded to his mood, and going 
down the steep hill which leads into the town 
of Falaise they shied violently at a heap of 
stones they had passed sedately a dozen times 
or more. Jacques de Wissant struck them 
several cruel blows with the whip he scarcely 
ever used, and the groom, looking furtively at 
his master’s set face and blazing eyes, felt 
suddenly afraid. 


44 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


III 

It was one o’clock, and the last of the 
wedding parties had swept gaily out of the 
great salle of the Falaise town hall and so to 
the Cathedral across the market place. 

Jacques de Wissant, with a feeling of relief, 
took off his tricolor badge of office. With the 
instinctive love of order which was character- 
istic of the man, he gathered up the papers 
that were spread on the large table and placed 
them in neat piles before him. Through the 
high windows, which by his orders had been 
prised open, for it was intensely hot, he could 
hear what seemed an unwonted stir outside. 
The picturesque town was full of strangers ; 
in addition to the usual holiday-makers from 
the neighbourhood, crowds of Parisians had 
come down to spend the Feast of the Assump- 
tion by the sea. 

The Mayor of Falaise liked to hear this 
unwonted stir and movement, for everything 
that affected the prosperity of the town affected 
him very nearly ; but he was constitutionally 
averse to noise, and just now he felt very tired. 
The varied emotions which had racked him 
that morning had drained him of his vitality ; 
and he thought with relief that in a few 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 45 

moments he would be in the old-fashioned 
restaurant just across the market place, where 
a table was always reserved for him when his 
town house happened to be shut up, and where 
all his tastes and dietetic fads — for M. de Wissant 
had a delicate digestion — were known. 

He took up his tall hat and his lemon- 
coloured gloves — and then a look of annoy- 
ance came over his weary face, for he 
heard the swinging of a door. Evidently 
his clerk was coming back to ask some stupid 
question. 

He always found it difficult to leave the 
town hall at the exact moment he wished to 
do so ; for although the officials dreaded his 
cold reprimands, they were far more afraid of 
his sudden hot anger if business of any import- 
ance were done without his knowledge and 
sanction. 

But this time it was not his clerk who wished 
to intercept the mayor on his way out to 
dejeuner ; it was the chief of the employes in 
the telephone and telegraph department of the 
building, a forward, pushing young man whom 
Jacques de Wissant disliked. 

‘‘M'sieur le maire?” and then he stopped 
short, daunted by the mayor’s stern look of 
impatient fatigue. ‘‘Has m’sieur le maire 
heard the news?” The speaker gathered up 


46 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
courage ; it is exciting to be the bearer of news, 
especially of ill news. 

M. de Wissant shook his head. 

‘‘Alas! there has been an accident, m’sieur 
le maire ! A terrible accident ! One of the 
submarines — they don’t yet know which it is — 
has been struck by a big private yacht and has 
sunk in the fairway of the Channel, about two 
miles out ! ” 

The Mayor of Falaise uttered an involuntary 
exclamation of horror. “When did it hap- 
pen ? ” he asked quickly. 

“About half an hour ago more or less. / 
said that m’sieur le maire ought to be informed 
at once of such a calamity. But I was told to 
wait till the marriages were over.” 

Looking furtively at the mayor’s pale face, 
the young man regretted that he had not taken 
more on himself, for m’sieur le maire looked 
seriously displeased. 

There was an old feud between the muni- 
cipal and the naval authorities of Falaise — there 
often is in a naval port — and the mayor ought 
certainly to have been among the very first to 
hear the news of the disaster. 

The bearer of ill news hoped m’sieur le maire 
would not blame him for the delay, or cause the 
fact to postpone his advancement to a higher 
grade — that advancement which is the per- 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 47 

petual dream of every French Government 
official. 

“The admiral has only just driven by,” 
he observed insinuatingly, “not five minutes 
ago ” 

But still Jacques de Wissant did not move. 
He was listening to the increasing stir and 
tumult going on outside in the market place. 
The sounds had acquired a sinister signifi- 
cance ; he knew now that the tramping of feet, 
the loud murmur of voices, meant that the 
whole population belonging to the seafaring 
portion of the town was emptying itself out and 
hurrying towards the harbour and the shore. 

Shaking off the bearer of ill news with a 
curt word of thanks, the Mayor of Falaise 
strode out of the town hall into the street 
and joined the eager crowd, mostly consisting 
of fisher folk, which grew denser as it swept 
down the tortuous narrow streets leading to 
the sea. 

The people parted with a sort of rough 
respect to make way for their mayor ; many 
of them, nay the majority, were known by 
name to Jacques de Wissant, and the older men 
and women among them could remember him 
as a child. 

Rising to the tragic occasion, he walked 
forward with his head held high, and a look of 


48 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


deep concern on his pale, set face. The men 
who manned the Northern Submarine Flotilla 
were almost all men born and bred at Falaise — 
Falaise famed for the gallant sailors she has 
ever given to France. 

The hurrying crowd — strangely silent in its 
haste — poured out on to the great stone-paved 
quays in which is set the harbour so finely 
encircled on two sides by the cliffs which give 
the town its name. 

Beyond the harbour — crowded with shipping, 
and now alive with eager little craft and fishing- 
boats making ready to start for the scene of 
the calamity — lay a vast expanse of glistening 
sea, and on that sun-flecked blue pall every 
eye was fixed. 

The end of the harbour jetty was already 
roped off, only those officially privileged being 
allowed through to the platform where now 
stood Admiral de Saint Vilquier impatiently 
waiting for the tug which was to take him out 
to the spot where the disaster had taken place. 
The Admiral was a naval officer of the old 
school — of the school who called their men “my 
children ” — and who detested the Republican 
form of government as being subversive of 
discipline. 

As Jacques de Wissant hurried up to him, he 
turned and stiffly saluted the Mayor of Falaise. 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 49 

Admiral de Saint Vilquier had no liking for 
M. de Wissant — a cold prig of a fellow, and yet 
married to such a beautiful, such a charming 
young woman, the daughter, too, of one of the 
Admirals oldest friends, of that Admiral de 
Kergouet with whom he had first gone to sea 
a matter of fifty years ago ! The lovely Claire 
de Kergouet had been worthy of a better fate 
than to be wife to this plain, cold-blooded 
landsman. 

“ Do they yet know. Admiral, which of the 
submarines has gone down?” asked Jacques 
de Wissant in a low tone. He was full of 
a burning curiosity edged with a longing and 
a suspense into whose secret sources he had 
no wish to thrust a probe. 

The Admiral’s weather-beaten face was a 
shade less red than usual ; the bright blue eyes 
he turned on the younger man were veiled with 
a film of moisture. ‘‘Yes, the news has just 
come in, but it isn’t to be made public for 
awhile. It’s the submarine Neptune which 
was struck, with Commander Dupre, Lieu- 
tenant Paritot, and ten men on board. The 
craft is lying eighteen fathoms deep ” 

Jacques de Wissant uttered an inarticulate 
cry — was it of horror or only of surprise ? And 
yet, gifted for that once and that once only 
with a kind of second sight, he had known that 
4 


50 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
it was the Neptune and Commander Dupre 
which lay eighteen fathoms deep on the floor 
of the sea. 

The old seaman, moved by the mayor’s 
emotion, relaxed into a confidential undertone. 
‘‘ Poor Dupre ! I had forgotten that you knew 
him. He is indeed pursued by a malignant 
fate. As of course you are aware, he applied 
a short time ago to be transferred to Toulon, 
and his appointment is in to-day’s Gazette, In 
fact he was actually leaving Falaise this very 
evening in order to spend a week with his 
family before taking up his new command ! ” 

The Mayor of Falaise stared at the Admiral. 
‘‘Dupre going away? — leaving Falaise?” he 
repeated incredulously. 

The other nodded. 

Jacques de Wissant drew a long, deep breath. 
God ! How mistaken he had been ! Mistaken 
as no man, no husband, had ever been mistaken 
before. He felt overwhelmed, shaken with 
conflicting emotions in which shame and in- 
tense relief predominated. 

The fact that Commander Dupre had applied 
for promotion was to his mind absolute proof 
that there had been nothing — nothing and less 
than nothing — between the naval officer and 
Claire. The Admiral’s words now made it 
clear that he, Jacques de Wissant, had built up 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


51 


a huge superstructure of jealousy and base 
thoughts on the fact that poor Dupre and 
Claire had innocently enjoyed certain tastes in 
common. True, such friendships — friendships 
between unmarried men and attractive young 
married women — are generally speaking to be 
deprecated. Still, Claire had always been 
‘‘correct;” of that there could now be no 
doubt. 

As he stood there on the pier, staring out, as 
all those about him and behind him were doing, 
at the expanse of dark blue sun-flecked sea, 
there came over Jacques de Wissant a great 
lightening of the spirit. . . . 

But all too soon his mind, his memory, 
swung back to the tragic business of the 
moment. 

Suddenly the Admiral burst into speech, ad- 
dressing himself, rather than the silent man by 
his side. 

“The devil of it is,” he exclaimed, “that 
the nearest salvage appliances are at Cher- 
bourg ! Thank God, the Ministry of Marine 
are alone responsible for that blunder. Dupre 
and his comrades have, it seems, thirty-six 
hours' supply of oxygen — if, indeed, they are 
still living, which I feel tempted to hope they 
are not. You see. Monsieur de Wissant, I was 
at Bizerta when the Lutin sank. A man doesn't 


52 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
want to remember two such incidents in his 
career. One is quite bad enough ! ” 

suppose it isn’t yet known how far the 
Neptune is injured?” inquired the Mayor of 
Falaise. 

But he spoke mechanically ; he was not 
really thinking of what he was saying. His 
inner and real self were still steeped in that 
strange mingled feeling of shame and relief — 
shame that he should have suspected his wife, 
exultant relief that his jealousy should have 
been so entirely unfounded. 

“No, as usual no one knows exactly what 
did happen. But we shall learn something of 
that presently. The divers are on their way. 
But — but even if the craft did sustain no injury, 
what can they do ? Ants might as well attempt 
to pierce a cannon-ball ” — he shrugged his 
shoulders, oppressed by the vision his homely 
simile had conjured up. 

And then — for no particular reason, save that 
his wife Claire was very present to him — Jacques 
de Wissant bethought himself that it was most 
unlikely that any tidings of the accident could 
yet have reached the Chalet des Dunes, the 
lonely villa on the shore where Claire was now 
lunching with her sister. But at any moment 
some casual visitor from the town might come 
out there with the sad news. He told himself 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


53 


uneasily that it would be well, if possible, to 
save his wife from such a shock. After all, 
Claire and that excellent Commander Dupre 
had been good friends — so much must be ad- 
mitted, nay, now he was eager to admit it. 

Jacques de Wissant touched the older man 
on the arm. 

“ I should be most grateful. Admiral, for the 
loan of your motor-car. I have just remem- 
bered that I ought to go home for an hour. 
This terrible affair made me forget it ; but I 
shall not be long — indeed, I must soon be back, 
for there will be all sorts of arrangements to be 
made at the town hall. Of course we shall 
be besieged with inquiries, with messages from 
Paris, with telegrams ” 

‘‘My car, monsieur, is entirely at your 
disposal.” 

The Admiral could not help feeling, even at 
so sad and solemn a moment as this, a little 
satirical amusement. Arrangements at the 
town hall, forsooth ! If the end of the world 
were in sight, the claims of the municipality 
of Falaise would not be neglected or forgotten ; 
in as far as Jacques de Wissant could arrange 
it, everything in such a case would be ready at 
the town hall, if not on the quarter-deck, for 
the Great Assize ! 

What had a naval disaster to do with the 


54 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


Mayor of Falaise, after all ? But in this matter 
the old Admiral allowed prejudice to get the 
better of him ; the men now immured in the 
submarine were, with two exceptions — their 
commander and his junior officer — all citizens 
of the town. It was their mothers, wives, 
children, sweethearts, who were now pressing 
with wild, agonized faces against the barriers 
drawn across the end of the pier. . . . 

As Jacques de Wissant made his way through 
the crowd, his grey frock-coat was pulled by 
many a horny hand, and imploring faces gazed 
with piteous questioning into his. But he could 
give them no comfort. 

Not till he found himself actually in the 
Admiral’s car did he give his instructions to the 
chauffeur. 

‘‘Take me to the Chalet des Dunes as 
quickly as you can drive without danger,” 
he said briefly. “You probably know where 
it is?” 

The man nodded and looked round con- 
sideringly. He had never driven so elegantly 
attired a gentleman before. Why, M. de 
Wissant looked like a bridegroom ! The 
Mayor of Falaise should be good for a hand- 
some tip. 

The chauffeur did not need to be told that on 
such a day time was of importance, and once 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


55 


they were out of the narrow, tortuous streets 
of the town, the Admiral’s car flew. 

And then, for the first time that day, Jacques 
de Wissant began to feel pleasantly cool, nay, 
there even came over him a certain exhilara- 
tion. He had been foolish to hold out against 
motor-cars. There was a great deal to be said 
for them, after all. He owed his wife repara- 
tion for his evil thoughts of her. He resolved 
that he would get Claire the best automobile 
money could buy. It is always a mistake to 
economize in such matters. . . . 

His mind took a sudden turn — he felt 
ashamed of his egoism, and the sensation dis- 
turbed him, for the Mayor of Falaise very 
seldom had occasion to feel ashamed, either 
of his thoughts or of his actions. How could 
he have allowed his attention to stray from the 
subject which should just now be absorbing his 
whole mind ? 

Thirty-six hours’ supply of oxygen ? Well, 
it might have been worse, for a great deal can 
be done in thirty-six hours. 

True, all the salvage appliances, so the 
Admiral had said, were at Cherbourg. What 
a shameful lack of forethought on someone’s 
part ! Still, there was little doubt but that the 
Neptune would be raised in— in time. The 
British Navy would send her salvage appliances. 


56 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Jacques de Wissant had a traditional distrust of 
the English, but at such moments all men are 
brothers, and just now the French and the 
English happened to be allies. He himself felt 
far more kindly to his little girls’ governess. 
Miss Doughty, than he would have done five 
years ago. 

Yes, without doubt the gallant English Navy 
would send salvage appliances. . . . 

There would be some hours of suspense — 
terrible hours for the wives and mothers of the 
men, but those poor women would be upheld 
by the universal sympathy shown them. He 
himself as mayor of the town would do all 
he could. He would seek these poor women 
out, say consoling, hopeful things, and Claire 
would help him. She had, as he knew, a very 
tender heart, especially where seamen were 
concerned. 

Indeed, it was a terrible thought — that of 
those brave fellows down there beneath the 
surface of the waters. Terrible, that is, if they 
were alive — alive in the same measure as he, 
Jacques de Wissant, was now alive in the keen, 
rushing air. Alive, and waiting for a deliver- 
ance that might never come. The idea made 
him feel a queer, interior tremor. 

Then his mind, in spite of himself, swung 
back to its old moorings. How strange that 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 57 

he had not been told that Commander Duprd 
had applied for a change of command ! Doubt- 
less the Mediterranean was better suited, being 
a tideless sea, for submarine experiments. 
Keen, clever Dupre, absorbed as he was in 
his profession, had doubtless thought of that. 

But, again, how odd of Claire not to have 
mentioned that Dupre was leaving Falaise ! 
Of course it was possible that she also had 
been ignorant of the fact. She very seldom 
spoke of other people’s affairs, and lately she 
had been so dreadfully worried about her 
sister’s, Marie-Anne’s, illness. 

If his wife had known nothing of Com- 
mander Dupre’s plans, it proved as hardly 
anything else could have done how little real 
intimacy there could have been between them. 
A man never leaves the woman he loves unless 
he has grown tired of her — then, as all the 
world knows, except perchance the poor soul 
herself, no place is too far for him to make for. 

Such was Jacques de Wissant’s simple, cyni- 
cal philosophy concerning a subject to which 
he had never given much thought. The tender 
passion had always appeared to him in one of 
two shapes — the one was a grotesque and 
slightly improper shape, which makes men do 
silly, absurd things ; the other came in the 
semblance of a sinister demon which wrecks 


58 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

the honour and devastates, as nothing else can 
do, the happiness of respectable families. It 
was this second and more hateful form which 
had haunted him these last few weeks. 

He recalled with a sick feeling of distaste 
the state of mind and body he had been in that 
very morning. Why, he had then been in the 
mood to kill Dupre, or, at any rate, to welcome 
the news of his death with fierce joy ! And 
then, simultaneously with his discovery of how 
groundless had been his jealousy, he had learnt 
the awful fact that the man whom he had 
wrongly accused lay out there, buried and yet 
alive, beneath the glistening sea, which was 
stretched out, like a great blue pall, on his 
left. 

Still, it was only proper that his wife 
should be spared the shock of hearing in some 
casual way of this awful accident. Claire had 
always been sensitive, curiously so, to every- 
thing that concerned the Navy. Admiral de 
Saint Vilquier had recalled the horrible sub- 
marine disaster of Bizerta harbour ; Jacques 
de Wissant now remembered uncomfortably 
how very unhappy that sad affair had made 
Claire. Why, one day he had found her in a 
passion of tears, mourning over the tragic fate 
of those poor sailor men, the crew of the 
Liitin^ of whose very names she was ignorant ! 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 59 

At the time he had thought her betrayal of 
feeling very unreasonable, but now he under- 
stood, and even shared to a certain extent, 
the pain she had shown ; but then he knew 
Dupr6, knew and liked him, and the men 
immured in the Neptune were men of Falaise. 

These were the thoughts which jostled each 
other in Jacques de Wissant’s brain as he sat 
back in the Admiral’s car. 

They were now rushing past the Pavilion de 
Wissant. What a pity it was that Claire had 
not remained quietly at home to-day ! It would 
have been so much pleasanter — if one could 
think of anything being pleasant in such a 
connection — to have gone in and told her the 
sad news at home. Her sister, Madeleine 
Baudoin, though older than Claire, was fool- 
ishly emotional and unrestrained in the expres- 
sion of her feelings. Madeleine was sure to 
make a scene when she heard of Commander 
Dupre’s peril, and Jacques de Wissant hated 
scenes. 

He now asked himself whether there was 
any real necessity for his telling his wife before 
her sister. All he need do was to send Claire 
a message by the servant who opened the door 
to him. He would say that she was wanted 
at home ; she would think something had 
happened to one of the children, and this 


60 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
would be a good thing, for it would prepare 
her in a measure for ill tidings. 

From what Jacques knew of his wife he 
believed she would receive the news quietly, 
and he, her husband, would show her every 
consideration ; again he reminded himself that 
it would be ridiculous to deny the fact that 
Claire had made a friend, almost an intimate, 
of Commander Dupre. It would be natural, 
nay ^‘correct,” for her to be greatly distressed 
when she heard of the accident. 

There came a familiar cutting in the road, 
and again the sea lay spread out, an opaque, 
glistening sheet of steel, before him. He gazed 
across, with a feeling of melancholy and fearful 
curiosity, to the swarm of craft great and 
small collected round the place where the 
Neptune lay, eighteen fathoms deep. . . . 

He hoped Claire would not ask to go back 
into the town with him in order to hear the 
latest news. But if she did so ask, then he 
would raise no objection. Every Falaise 
woman, whatever her rank in life, was now 
full of suspense and anxiety, and as the 
mayor’s wife Claire had a right to share that 
anxious suspense. 

The car was now slowing on the sharp 
decline leading to the shore, and Jacques de 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 61 

Wissant got up and touched the chauffeur on 
the shoulder. 

‘‘ Stop here,’' he said. ‘‘ You needn’t drive 
down to the Chalet. I want you to turn and 
wait for me at the Pavilion de Wissant. Ask 
my servants to give you some luncheon. I 
may be half an hour or more, but I want to 
get back to Falaise as soon as I can.” 

The Chalet des Dunes had been well named. 
It stood enclosed in rough palings in a sandy 
wilderness. An attempt had been made to turn 
the immediate surroundings of the villa into the 
semblance of a garden ; there were wind-blown 
flowers set in sandy flower-beds, and coarse, 
luxuriant creepers flung their long, green ropes 
about the wooden verandah. In front, stretch- 
ing out into the sea, was a stone pier, built 
by Jacques’ father many a year ago. 

The Chalet looked singularly quiet and de- 
serted, for all the shutters had been closed in 
order to shut out the midday heat. 

Jacques de Wissant became vaguely uneasy. 
He reconsidered his plan of action. If the two 
sisters were alone together — as he supposed 
them to be — he would go in and quietly tell 
them of the accident. It would be making 
altogether too much of the matter to send for 
Claire to come out to him ; she might very 
properly resent it. For the matter of that, it 


62 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


was quite possible that Madeleine Baudoin had 
some little sentiment for DuprA That would 
explain so much — the officer’s constant presence 
at the Chalet des Dunes added to his absence 
from the Pavilion. It was odd he had never 
thought of the possibility before. 

But this new idea made Jacques grow more 
and more uneasy at the thought of the task 
which now lay before him. With slow, hesi- 
tating steps he walked up to the little front 
door of the Chalet. 

He pulled the rusty bell-handle. How ab- 
surd to have ironwork in such a place ! 

There followed what seemed to him a very 
long pause. He rang again. 

There came the sound of light, swift steps ; 
he could hear them in spite of the rhythmical 
surge of the sea; and then the door was 
opened by his sister-in-law, Madame Baudoin, 
herself. 

In the midst of his own agitation and unease, 
Jacques de Wissant saw that there was a look 
of embarrassment on the face which Madeleine 
tried to make amiably welcoming. 

‘‘Jacques?” she exclaimed. “Forgive me 
for having made you ring twice ! I have sent 
the servants into Falaise to purchase a railway 
time-table. Claire will doubtless have told you 
that I am starting for Italy to-night. Our poor 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


63 


Marie-Anne is worse ; and I feel that it is my 
duty to go to her.” 

She did not step aside to allow him to come 
in. In fact, doubtless without meaning to do 
so, she was actually blocking up the door. 

No, Claire had not told Jacques that Marie- 
Anne was worse. That of course was why she 
had looked so unhappy this morning. He felt 
hurt and angered by his wife’s reserve. 

‘‘I am sure you will agree, Madeleine,” he 
said stiffly — he was not sorry to gain a little 
time — ‘‘that it would not be wise for Claire to 
accompany you to Italy. After all, she is still 
quite a young woman, and poor Marie-Anne’s 
disease is most infectious. I have ascertained, 
too, that there is a regular epidemic raging in 
Mantua.” 

Madeleine nodded. Then she turned, with 
an uneasy side-look at her brother-in-law, and 
began leading the way down the short passage. 
The door of the dining-room was open ; Jacques 
could not help seeing that only one place was 
laid at the round table, also that Madeleine had 
just finished her luncheon. 

“Isn’t Claire here?” he asked, surprised. 
“She said she was going to lunch with 
you to-day. Hasn’t she been here this 
morning? ” 

“No — I mean yes.” Madeleine spoke con- 


64 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

fusedly. ‘‘She did not stay to lunch. She 
was only here for a very little while.” 

“ But has she gone home again ? ” 

“Well — she may be home by now ; I really 
don’t know ” — Madeleine was opening the door 
of the little drawing-room. 

It was an ugly, common-looking room ; the 
walls were hung with Turkey red, and orna- 
mented with cheap coloured prints. There 
were cane and basket chairs which Madame 
Baudoin had striven to make comfortable with 
the help of cushions and rugs. 

Jacques de Wissant told himself that it was 
odd that Claire should like to spend so much 
of her time here, in the Chalet des Dunes, 
instead of asking her sister to join her each 
morning or afternoon in her own beautiful 
house on the cliff. 

“Forgive me,” he said stiffly, “but I can’t 
stay a moment. I really came for Claire. You 
say I shall find her at home ? ' 

He held his top hat and his yellow gloves in 
his hand, and his sister-in-law thought she had 
never seen Jacques look so plain and unattrac- 
tive, and — and tiresome as he looked to-day. 

Madame Baudoin had a special reason for 
wishing him away ; but she knew the slow, 
sure workings of his mind. If Jacques found 
that his wife had not gone back to the Pavilion 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 65 

de Wissant, and that there was no news of her 
there, he would almost certainly come back to 
the Chalet des Dunes for further information. 

“No,” she said reluctantly, “Claire has 
not gone back to the Pavilion. I believe that 
she has gone into the town. She had some- 
thing important that she wished to do there.” 

She looked so troubled, so — so uncomfort- 
able that Jacques de Wissant leapt to the 
sudden conclusion that the tidings he had 
been at such pains to bring had already been 
brought to the Chalet des Dunes. 

“Ah ! ” he exclaimed, “then I am too late ! 
Ill news travels fast.” 

“ 111 news?” Madeleine repeated affrightedly. 
“ Is anything the matter? Has anything hap- 
pened to one of the children ? Don’t keep me 
in suspense, Jacques. I am not cold-blooded — 
like you ! ” 

“The children are all right,” he said shortly. 
“ But there has been, as you evidently know, 
an accident. The submarine Neptune has met 
with a serious mishap. She now lies with her 
crew in eighteen fathoms of water about two 
miles out.” 

He spoke with cold acerbity. How childishly 
foolish of Madeleine to try and deceive him ! 
But all women of the type to which she be- 
longed make foolish mysteries about nothing. 

5 


66 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

‘‘The submarine Neptune?'' As she stam- 
mered out the question which had already been 
answered, there came over Madame Baudoin’s 
face a look of measureless terror. Twice her 
lips opened — and twice she closed them again. 

At last she uttered a few words — words of 
anguished protest and revolt. “No, no,” she 
cried, “that can't be — it’s impossible ! ” 

“Command yourself!” he said sternly. 
“Remember what would be thought by any- 
one who saw you in this state.” 

But she went on looking at him with wild, 
terror-stricken eyes. “My poor Claire!” she 
moaned. “My little sister Claire ” 

All Jacques de Wissant’s jealousy leapt into 
eager, quivering life. Then he had been right 
after all? His wife loved Dupre. Her sister’s 
anguished sympathy had betrayed Claire’s 
secret as nothing Claire herself was ever likely 
to say or do could have done. 

“ You are a good sister,” he said ironically, 
“to take Claire’s distress so much to heart. 
Identifying yourself as entirely as you seem to 
do with her, I am surprised that you did not 
accompany her into Falaise : it was most 
wrong of you to let her go alone.” 

“Claire is not in Falaise,” muttered Made- 
leine. She was grasping the back of one of the 
cane chairs with her hand as if glad of even 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


67 


that slight support, staring at him with a dazed 
look of abject misery which increased his 
anger, his disgust. 

“Not in Falaise?’’ he echoed sharply. 
“Then where, in God’s name, is she?” 

A most disagreeable possibility had flashed 
into his mind. Was it conceivable that his 
wife had had herself rowed to the scene of the 
disaster? If she had done that, if her sister 
had allowed her to go alone, or accompanied 
maybe by one or other of the officers belonging 
to the submarine flotilla, then he told himself 
with jealous rage that he would find it very 
difficult ever to forgive Claire. There are 
things a woman with any self-respect, especially 
a woman who is the mother of daughters, 
refrains from doing. 

“ Well ? ” he said contemptuously. “ Well, 
Madeleine ? I am waiting to hear the truth. I 
desire no explanations — no excuses. I cannot, 
however, withhold myself from telling you that 
you ought to have accompanied your sister, 
even if you found it impossible to control her.” 

“ I was there yesterday,” said Madeleine 
Baudoin, with a pinched, white face, “for over 
two hours.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously. 
“Where were you yesterday for over two 
hours ? ” 


68 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


“In the Neptune.'' 

She gazed at him, past him, with widely 
open eyes, as if she were staring, fascinated, at 
some scene of unutterable horror — and there 
crept into Jacques de Wissant’s mind a thought 
so full of shameful dread that he thrust it 
violently from him^ 

“You were in the Neptune^" he said slowly, 
“knowing well that it is absolutely forbidden 
for any officer to take a friend on board a 
submarine without a special permit from the 
Minister of Marine ? ” 

“It is sometimes done,” she said listlessly. 

Madame Baudoin had now sat down on a 
low chair, and she was plucking at the front of 
her white serge skirt with a curious mechanical 
movement of the fingers. 

“ Did the submarine actually put out to sea 
with you on board ? ” 

She nodded her head, and then very deliber- 
ately added, “Yes, I have told you that I was 
out for two hours. They all knew it — the men 
and officers of the flotilla. I was horribly 
frightened, but — but now I am glad indeed 
that I went. Yes, I am indeed glad ! ” 

“Why are you glad?” he asked roughly — 
and again a hateful suspicion thrust itself 
insistently upon him. 

“ I am glad I went, because it will make 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 69 

what Claire has done to-day seem natural, a 
— a simple escapade.” 

There was a moment of terrible silence 
between them. 

“Then do all the officers and men belonging 
to the flotilla know that my wife is out there — 
in Neptune ? ” Jacques de Wissant asked in 
a low, still voice. 

“ No,” said Madeleine, and there was now a 
look of shame, as well as of terror, on her face. 
“They none of them know — only those who 
are on board.” She hesitated a moment — 
“That is why I sent the servants away this 
morning. We — I mean Commander Dupre 
and I — did not think it necessary that anyone 
should know.” 

“Then no one — that is, only a hare-brained 
young officer and ten men belonging to the 
town of Falaise — were to be aware of the fact 
that my wife had accompanied her lover on 
this life-risking expedition? You and Dupr6 
were indeed tender of her honour — and mine.” 

“Jacques!” She took her hand off the 
chair, and faced her brother-in-law proudly. 
“What infamous thing is this that you are 
harbouring in your mind ? My sister is an 
honest woman, aye, as honest, as high-minded 
as was your own mother ” 

He stopped her with a violent gesture. “ Do 


70 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


not mention Claire and my mother in the same 
breath ! ” he cried. 

“Ah, but I will — I must! You want the 
truth — you said just now you wanted only the 
truth. Then you shall hear the truth ! Yes, it 
is as you have evidently suspected. Louis 
Dupre loves Claire, and she ” — her voice 
faltered, then grew firmer — “she may have had 
for him a little sentiment. Who can tell ? You 
have not been at much pains to make her happy. 
But what is true, what is certain, is that she 
rejected his love. To-day they were to part — 
for ever.” 

Her voice failed again, then once more it 
strengthened and hardened. 

“That is why he in a moment of folly — I 
admit it was in a moment of folly — asked her to 
come out on his last cruise in the Neptune, 
When you came I was expecting them back 
any moment. But, Jacques, do not be afraid. 
I swear to you that no one shall ever know. 
Admiral de Saint Vilquier will do anything for 
us Kergouets ; I myself will go to him, and — 
and explain.” 

But Jacques de Wissant scarcely heard the 
eager, pitiful words. 

He had thrust his wife from his mind, and 
her place had been taken by his honour — his 
honour and that of his children, of happy, light- 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 71 

hearted Clairette and Jacqueline. For what 
seemed a long while he said nothing ; then, 
with all the anger gone from his voice, he 
spoke, uttered a fiat. 

‘‘No,” he said quietly. “You must leave 
the Admiral to me, Madeleine. You were 
going to Italy to-night, were you not? That, 
I take it, is true.” 

She nodded impatiently. What did her 
proposed journey to Italy matter compared 
with her beloved Claire’s present peril ? 

“Well, you must carry out your plan, my 
poor Madeleine, You must go away to-night.” 

She stared at him, her face at last blotched 
with tears, and a look of bewildered anguish 
in her eyes. 

“You must do this,” Jacques de Wissant 
went on deliberately, “for Claires sake, and 
for the sake of Claire’s children. You haven’t 
sufficient self-control to endure suspense calmly, 
secretly. You need not go farther than Paris, 
but those whom it concerns will be told that 
Claire has gone with you to Italy. There will 
always be time to tell the truth. Meanwhile, 
the Admiral and I will devise a plan. And per- 
haps ” — he waited a moment — “the truth will 
never be known, or only known to a very few 
people — people who, as you say, will under- 
stand.” 


72 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

He had spoken very slowly, as if weighing 
each of his words, but it was quickly, with a 
queer catch in his voice, that he added — ‘‘ I 
ask you to do this, my sister ’’ — he had never 
before called Madeleine Baudoin ‘‘my sister*^ — 
“because of Claire^s children, of Clairette and 
Jacqueline. Their mother would not wish a 
slur to rest upon them.” 

She looked at him with piteous, hunted eyes. 
But she knew that she must do what he asked. 


IV 

Jacques de Wissant sat at his desk in the 
fine old room which is set aside for the mayor's 
sole use in the town hall of Falaise. 

He was waiting for Admiral de Saint Vilquier, 
whom he had summoned on the plea of a 
matter both private and urgent. In his note, 
of which he had written more than one draft, 
he had omitted none of the punctilio usual in 
French official correspondence, and he had 
asked pardon, in the most formal language, 
for asking the Admiral to come to him, instead 
of proposing to go to the Admiral. 

The time that had elapsed since he had 
parted from his sister-in-law had seemed like 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 73 

years instead of hours, and yet every moment 
of those hours had been filled with action. 

From the Chdlet des Dunes Jacques had 
made his way straight to the Pavilion de Wis- 
sant, and there his had been the bitter task of 
lying to his household. 

They had accepted unquestioningly his 
statement that their mistress, without waiting 
even to go home, had left the Chalet des 
Dunes with her sister for Italy owing to the 
arrival of sudden worse news from Mantua. 

While Claire’s luggage was being by his 
orders hurriedly prepared, he had changed 
his clothes ; and then, overcome with mortal 
weariness, with sick, sombre suspense, he had 
returned to Falaise, taking the railway station 
on his way to the town hall, and from there 
going through the grim comedy of despatching 
his wife’s trunks to Paris. 

Since the day war was declared by France 
on Germany, there had never been at the 
town hall of Falaise so busy an afternoon. 
Urgent messages of inquiry and condolence 
came pouring in from all over the civilized 
world, and the mayor had to compose suitable 
answers to them all. 

To him there also fell the painful duty of 
officially announcing to the crowd surging 
impatiently in the market place — though room 


74 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

in front was always made and kept for those 
of the fisher folk who had relatives in the 
submarine service — that it was the Neptune 
which had gone down. 

He had seen the effect of that announce- 
ment painted on rough, worn, upturned faces ; 
he had heard the cries of anger, the groans of 
despair of the few, and had witnessed the 
relief, the tears of joy of the many. But his 
heart felt numb, and his cold, stern manner 
kept the emotions and excitement of those 
about him in check. 

At last there had come a short respite. It 
was publicly announced that owing to the 
currents the divers had had to suspend their 
work awhile, but that salvage appliances from 
England and from Cherbourg were on their 
way to Falaise, and that it was hoped by seven 
that evening active operations would begin. 
With luck the Neptune might be raised before 
midnight. 

Fortunate people blessed with optimistic 
natures were already planning a banquet at 
which the crew of the Neptune were to be 
entertained within an hour of the rescue. 

Jacques de Wissant rose from the massive 
First Empire table which formed part of the 
fine suite of furniture presented by the great 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 75 

Napoleon just a hundred years ago to the 
municipality of Falaise. 

With bent head, his hands clasped behind 
him, the mayor began walking up and down 
the long room. 

Admiral de Saint Vilquier might now come 
at any moment, but the man awaiting him had 
not yet made up his mind how to word what 
he had to say — how much to tell, how much 
to conceal from, his wife’s old friend. He was 
only too well aware that if the desperate 
attempts which would soon be made to raise 
the Neptmie were successful, and if its human 
freight were rescued alive, the fact that there 
had been a woman on board could not be 
concealed. Thousands would know to-night, 
and millions to-morrow morning. 

Not only would the amazing story provide 
newspaper readers all over the world with a 
thrilling, unexpected piece of news, but the fact 
that there had been a woman involved in the 
disaster would be perpetuated, as long as our 
civilization endures, in every account of sub- 
sequent accidents to submarine craft. 

More intimately, vividly agonizing was the 
knowledge that the story, the scandal, would 
be revived when there arose the all-important 
question of a suitable marriage for Clairette or 
Jacqueline. 


76 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

As he paced up and down the room, longing 
for and yet dreading the coming of the Admiral, 
he visualized what would happen. He could 
almost hear the whispered words : ‘‘Yes, dear 
friend, the girl is admirably brought up, and 
has a large fortune, also she and your son 
have taken quite a fancy for one another, but 
there is that very ugly story of the mother ! 
Don’t you remember that she was with her 
lover in the submarine Neptune ? The citizens 
of Falaise still laugh at the story and point 
her out in the street. Like mother like 
daughter, you know ! ” Thus the miserable 
man tortured himself, turning the knife in his 
wound. 

But stay Supposing the salvage appli- 

ances failed, as they had failed at Bizerta, to 
raise the Neptune ? Then with the help of 
Admiral de Saint Vilquier the awful truth 
might be kept secret. 

At last the door opened. 

Jacques de Wissant took a step forward, and 
as his hand rested loosely for a moment in the 
old seaman’s firmer grasp, he would have 
given many years of his life to postpone the 
coming interview. 

“As you asked me so urgently to do so, I 
have come, M. de Wissant, to learn what you 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 77 

have to tell me. But I’m afraid the time I can 
spare you must be short. As you know, I am 
to be at the station in half an hour to meet the 
Minister of Marine. He will probably wish to 
go out at once to the scene of the calamity, 
and I shall have to accompany him.” 

The Admiral was annoyed at having been 
thus sent for to the town hall. It was surely 
Jacques de Wissant’s place to have come to 
him. 

And then, while listening to the other’s mur- 
mured excuses, the old naval officer happened 
to look straight into the face of the Mayor of 
Falaise, and at once a change came over his 
manner, even his voice softened and altered. 

“ Pardon my saying so, M. de Wissant,” he 
exclaimed abruptly, ‘‘but you look extremely 
ill ! You mustn’t allow this sad business to 
take such a hold on you. It is tragic no doubt 
that such things must be, but remember” — he 
uttered the words solemnly — “they are the 
Price of Admiralty.” 

“I know, I know,” muttered Jacques de 
Wissant. 

“Shall we sit down?” 

The deadly pallor, the look of strain on the 
face of the man before him was making the 
Admiral feel more and more uneasy. “It 
would be very awkward,” he thought to him- 


78 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

self, “were Jacques de Wissant to be taken 
ill, here, now, with me Ah, I have it ! ” 

Then he said aloud, “You have doubtless 
had nothing to eat since the morning? ” And 
as de Wissant nodded — “But that’s absurd! 
It’s always madness to go without food. Believe 
me, you will want all your strength during the 
next few days. As for me, I had fortunately 
lunched before I received the sad news. I keep 
to the old hours ; I do not care for your 
English dejeuners at one o’clock. Midday is 
late enough for me I ” 

“Admiral?” said the wretched man, “Ad- 
miral ?” 

“Yes, take your time; I am not really in 
such a hurry. I am quite at your disposal.” 

“It is a question of honour,” muttered 
Jacques de Wissant, “a question of honour. 
Admiral, or I should not trouble you with the 
matter.” 

Admiral de Saint Vilquier leant forward, 
but Jacques de Wissant avoided meeting the 
shrewd, searching eyes. 

“ The honour of a naval family is involved.” 
The Mayor of Falaise was now speaking in a 
low, pleading voice. 

The Admiral stiffened. “Ah!” he ex- 
claimed. “So you have been asked to in- 
tercede with me on behalf of some young 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


79 


scapegrace. Well, who is it? I’ll look into 
the matter to-morrow morning. I really cannot 
think of anything to-day but of this terrible 
business ” 

‘‘ Admiral, it concerns this business.” 

‘‘The loss of the Neptune? In what way 
can the honour of a naval family be possibly 
involved in such a matter?” There was a 
touch of hauteur as well as of indignant sur- 
prise in the fine old seaman’s voice. 

“Admiral,” said Jacques de Wissant de- 
liberately, “there was — there is — a woman on 
board the Neptune?' 

“A woman in the Neptune? That is quite 
impossible ! ” The Admiral got up from his 
chair. “It is one of our strictest regulations 
that no stranger be taken on board a submarine 
without a special permit from the Minister of 
Marine, countersigned by an admiral. No 
such permit has been issued for many months. 
In no case would a woman be allowed on 
board. Commander Dupre is far too con- 
scientious, too loyal, an officer to break such a 
regulation.” 

“Commander Dupre,” said Jacques de Wis- 
sant in a low, bitter tone, “ was not too con- 
scientious or too loyal an officer to break that 
regulation, for there is, I repeat it, a woman 
in the Neptune?' 


80 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


The Admiral sat down again. But this is 
serious — very serious,” he muttered. 

He was thinking of the effect, not only at 
home but abroad, of such a breach of dis- 
cipline. 

He shook his head with a pained, angry 
gesture — ‘‘I understand what happened,” he 
said at last. ‘‘The woman was of course poor 
Dupre’s” — and then something in Jacques 
de Wissant’s pallid face made him substitute, 
for the plain word he meant to have used, a 
softer, kindlier phrase — “poor Dupre’s bonne 
amie^'' he said. 

“I am advised not,” said Jacques de Wis- 
sant shortly. “I am told that the person in 
question is a young lady.” 

“ Do you mean an unmarried girl?” asked 
the Admiral. There was great curiosity and 
sincere relief in his voice. 

“I beg of you not to ask me, Admiral! 
The family of the lady have implored me to 
reveal as little of the truth as possible. They 
have taken their own measures, and they are 
good measures, to account for her — her dis- 
appearance.” The unhappy man spoke with 
considerable agitation. 

“ Quite so ! Quite so ! They are right. I 
have no wish to show indiscreet curiosity.” 

“Do you think anything can be done to 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY SI 

prevent the fact becoming known ? ” asked 
Jacques de Wissant — and, as the other 
waited a moment before answering, the sus- 
pense became almost more than he could 
endure. 

He got up and instinctively stood with his 
back to the light. ‘^The family of this young 
lady are willing to make any pecuniary 
sacrifice ” 

“It is not a question of pecuniary sacrifice,” 
the Admiral said stiffly. “Money will never 
really purchase either secrecy or silence. But 
honour, M. de Wissant, will sometimes, nay, 
often, do both.” 

“Then you think the fact can be con- 
cealed ? ” 

“I think it will be impossible to conceal it 
if the Neptune is raised ” — he hesitated, and 
his voice sank as he added the poignant words 

in thne. But if that happens, though I fear 
that it is not likely to happen, then I promise 
you that I will allow it to be thought that I 
had given this lady permission, and her im- 
proper action will be accepted for what it no 
doubt was — a foolish escapade. If Dupr6 and 
little Paritot are the men of honour I take 
them to be, one or other of them will of course 
marry her ! ” 

“And if the Neptune is not raised — ” the 
6 


82 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Mayor s voice also dropped to a whisper — ‘‘ in 
time — what then ? ” 

‘‘Then,” said the Admiral, “everything will 
be done by me — so you can assure your un- 
lucky friends — to conceal the fact that Com- 
mander Duprd failed in his duty. Not for 
his sake, you understand— he, I fear, deserves 
what he has suffered, what he is perhaps still 
suffering,” — a look of horror stole over his old, 
weather-roughened face — “but for the sake of 
the foolish girl and for the sake of her family. 
You say it is a naval family? ” 

“Yes,” said Jacques de Wissant. “A 
noted naval family.” 

The Admiral got up. “And now I, on my 
side, must exact of you a pledge, M. de 
Wissant — ” he looked searchingly at the 
Government official standing before him. “I 
solemnly implore you, monsieur, to keep this 
fact you have told me absolutely secret for the 
time being — secret even from the Minister of 
Marine.” 

The Mayor of Falaise bent his head. “I 
intend to act,” he said slowly, “as if I had 
never heard it.” 

“I ask it for the honour, the repute, of the 
Service,” muttered the old officer. “ After all, 
M. de Wissant, the poor fellow did not 
mean much harm. We sailors have all, at 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 83 

different times of our lives, had some bonne 
amie whom we found it devilish hard to leave 
on shore ! ” 

The Admiral walked slowly towards the 
door. To-day had aged him years. Then he 
turned and looked benignantly at Jacques de 
Wissant ; the man before him might be stiff, 
cold, awkward in manner, but he was a gentle- 
man, a man of honour. 

And as he drove to the station to meet the 
Minister of Marine, Admiral de Saint Vilquier’s 
shrewd, practical mind began to deal with the 
difficult problem which was now added to his 
other cares. It was simplified in view of the 
fact — the awful fact — that according to his 
private information it was most unlikely that 
the submarine would be raised within the next 
few hours. He hoped with all his heart that 
the twelve men and the woman now lying 
beneath the sea had met death at the moment 
of the collision. 

All that summer night the cafes and eating- 
houses of Falaise remained open, and there 
was a constant coming and going to the beach, 
where many people, even among those visitors 
who were not directly interested in the calamity, 
camped out on the stones. 

The mayor sent word to the Pavilion de 


84 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

W’issant that he would sleep in his town house, 
but though he left the town hall at two in 
the morning he was back at his post by eight, 
and he spent there the whole of the next long 
dragging day. 

Fortunately for him there was little time 
for thought. In addition to the messages of 
inquiry and condolence which went on pour- 
ing in, important members of the Government 
arrived from Paris and the provinces. 

There also came to Falaise the mother of 
Commander Dupr6, and the father and brother 
of Lieutenant Paritot. De Wissant made the 
latter his special care. They, the two men, 
were granted the relief of tears, but Madame 
Dupre’s silent agony could not be assuaged. 

Once, when he suddenly came upon her 
sitting, her chin in her hand, in his room at 
the town hall, Jacques de Wissant shrank 
from her blazing eyes and ravaged face, so 
vividly did they recall to him the eyes, the 
face, he had seen that April evening ‘‘’twixt 
dog and wolf,” when he had first leapt upon 
the truth. 

On the third day all hope that there could 
be anyone still living in the Neptune was being 
abandoned, and yet at noon there ran a rumour 
through the town that knocking had been 
heard in the submarine. . . . 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 85 

The mayor himself drew up an official pro- 
clamation, in which it was pointed out that it 
was almost certain that all on board had 
perished at the time of the collision, and that, 
even if any of them had survived for a few 
hours, not one could be alive now. 

And then, as one by one the days of waiting 
began to wear themselves away, the world, 
apart from the town which numbered ten of 
her sons among the doomed men, relaxed its 
painful interest in the fate of the French sub- 
marine. Indeed, Falaise took on an almost 
winter stillness of aspect, for the summer 
visitors naturally drifted away from a spot 
which was still the heart of an awful tragedy. 

But Jacques de Wissant did not relax in his 
duties or in his efforts on behalf of the families 
of the men who still lay, eighteen fathoms 
deep, encased in their steel tomb ; and the 
townspeople" were deeply moved by their 
mayor s continued, if restrained, distress. He 
even put his children, his pretty twin daughters, 
Jacqueline and Clairette, into deep mourning ; 
this touched the seafaring portion of the popu- 
lation very much. 

It also became known that M. de Wissant 
was suffering from domestic distress of a very 
sad and intimate kind ; his sister-in-law was 
seriously ill in Italy from an infectious disease. 


86 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

and his wife, who had gone away at a moment’s 
notice to help to nurse her, had caught the 
infection. 

The Mayor of Falaise and Admiral de Saint 
Vilquier did not often have occasion to meet 
during those days spent by each of them in 
entertaining official personages and in compos- 
ing answers to the messages and inquiries which 
went on dropping in, both by day and by 
night, at the town hall and at the Admiral’s 
quarters. But there came an hour when 
Admiral de Saint Vilquier at last sought to 
have a private word with the Mayor of 
Falaise. 

“I think I have arranged everything satis- 
factorily,” he said briefly, ‘‘and you can 
convey the fact to your friends. I do not 
suppose, as matters are now, that there is 
much fear that the truth will ever come 
out.” 

The old man did not look into Jacques de 
Wissant’s face while he uttered the comforting 
words. He had become aware of many 
things — including Madeleine Baudoin’s cruise 
in the Neptune the day before the accident, 
and of her own and Claire de Wissant’s 
reported departure for Italy. 

Alone, among the people who sometimes 
had friendly speech of the mayor durihg those 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 87 

sombre days of waiting, Admiral de Saint 
Vilquier did not condole with the anxious 
husband on the fact that he could not yet 
leave Falaise for Mantua. 


V 

Jacques de Wissant woke with a start and 
sat up in bed. He had heard a knock — but, 
awake or sleeping, his ears were never free of 
the sound of knocking, — of muffled, regular 
knocking. . . . 

It was the darkest hour of the summer 
night, but with a sharp sense of relief he 
became aware that what had wakened him 
this time was a real sound, not the slow, 
patient, rhythmical, tapping which haunted 
him incessantly. But now the knocking had 
been followed by the opening of his bedroom 
door, and vaguely outlined before him was the 
short, squat form of an old woman who had 
entered his mother’s service when he was a 
little boy, and who always stayed in his town 
house. 

“M’sieur I’Amiral de Saint Vilquier 
desires to see M’sieur Jacques on urgent 
business,” she whispered. “I have put him 


88 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

to wait in the great drawing-room. It is 
fortunate that I took all the covers off the 
furniture yesterday.” 

Then the moment of ordeal, the moment 
he had begun to think would never come — 
was upon him? He knew this summons to 
mean that the Neptune had been finally towed 
into the harbour, and that now, in this still, 
dark hour before dawn, was about to begin 
the work of taking out the bodies. 

Every day for a week past it had been 
publicly announced that the following night 
would see the final scene of the dread drama, 
and each evening — even last evening — it had 
been as publicly announced that nothing 
could be done for the present. 

Jacques de Wissant had put all his trust 
in the Admiral and in the arrangements the 
Admiral was making to avoid discovery. But 
now, as he got up and dressed himself— -strange 
to say that phantom sound of knocking had 
ceased — there came over him a frightful 
sensation of doubt and fear. Had he been 
right to trust wholly to the old naval officer? 
Would it not have been better to have taken 
the Minister of Marine into his confidence? 

How would it be possible for Admiral de 
Saint Vilquier, unless backed by Governmental 
authority, to elude the vigilance, not only 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 89 

of the Admiralty officials and of all those 
that were directly interested, but also of the 
journalists who, however much the public 
interest had slackened in the disaster, still 
stayed on at Falaise in order to be present 
at the last act of the tragedy ? 

These thoughts jostled each other in Jacques 
de Wissant’s brain. But whether he had been 
right or wrong it was too late to alter now. 

He went into the room where the Admiral 
stood waiting for him. 

The two men shook hands, but neither 
spoke till they had left the house. Then, as 
they walked with firm, quick steps across 
the deserted market-place, the Admiral said 
suddenly, ‘‘This is the quietest hour in the 
twenty-four, and though I anticipate a little 
trouble with the journalists, I think every- 
thing will go off quite well.” 

His companion muttered a word of assent, 
and the other went on, this time in a gruff 
whisper: “By the way, I have had to tell 
Dr. Tarnier — ” and as Jacques de Wissant 
gave vent to a stifled exclamation of dismay — 
“of course I had to tell Dr. Tarnier! He 
has most nobly offered to go down into the 
Nepttme alone—though in doing so he will 
run considerable personal risk.” 

Admiral de Saint Vilquier paused a moment. 


90 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
for the quick pace at which his companion 
was walking made him rather breathless. “ I 
have simply told him that there was a young 
woman on board. He imagines her to have 
been a Parisienne, — a person of no importance, 
you understand, — who had come to spend 
the holiday with poor Dupre. But he quite 
realizes that the fact must never be revealed.” 
He spoke in a dry, matter-of-fact tone. 
‘‘There will not be room on the pontoon 
for more than five or six, including ourselves 
and Dr. Tarnier. Doubtless some of our 
newspaper friends will be disappointed— if 
one can speak of disappointment in such a 
connection — but they will have plenty of 
opportunities of being present to-morrow and 
the following nights. I have arranged with 
the Minister of Marine for the work to be done 
only at night.” 

As the two men emerged on the quays, they 
saw that the news had leaked out, for knots of 
people stood about, talking in low hushed 
tones, and staring at the middle of the harbour. 

Apart from the others, and almost danger- 
ously close to the unguarded edge below which 
was the dark lapping water, stood a line of 
women shrouded in black, and from them came 
no sound. 

As the Admiral and his companion ap- 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


91 


proached the little group of officials who were 
apparently waiting for them, the old naval 
officer whispered to Jacques de Wissant, using 
for the first time the familiar expression, mori 
amiy' “Do not forget, mon ami^ to thank the 
harbour-master and the pilot. They have had 
a very difficult task, and they will expect your 
commendation.” 

Jacques de Wissant said the words required 
of him. And then, at the last moment, just as 
he was on the point of going down the steps 
leading to the flat-bottomed boat in which they 
were to be rowed to the pontoon, there arose 
an angry discussion. The harbour-master 
had, it seemed, promised the representatives 
of two Paris newspapers that they should 
be present when the submarine was first 
opened. 

But the Admiral stiffly asserted his supreme 
authority. “In such matters I can allow no 
favouritism ! It is doubtful if any bodies will 
be taken out to-night, gentlemen, for the tide 
is already turning. I will see if other arrange- 
ments can be made to-morrow. If any of you 
had been in the harbour of Bizerta when the 
Lutin was raised, you would now thank me 
for not allowing you to view the sight which 
we may be about to see.” 

And the weary, disappointed special corre- 


92 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


spondents, who had spent long days watching 
for this one hour, realized that they would have 
to content themselves with describing what 
could be seen from the quays. 

It will, however, surprise no one familiar 
with the remarkable enterprise of the modern 
press, when it is recorded that by far the most 
accurate account of what occurred during the 
hour that followed was written by a cosmo- 
politan war correspondent, who had had the 
good fortune of making Dr. Tarnier’s acquaint- 
ance during the dull fortnight of waiting. 

He wrote : 

None of those who were there will ever forget 
what they saw last night in the harbour of Falaise. 

The scene, illumined by the searchlight of a 
destroyer, was at once sinister, sombre, and magnifi- 
cent. Below the high, narrow pontoon, on the floor 
of the harbour, lay the wrecked submarine ; and 
those who gazed down at the Neptune felt as though 
they were in the presence of what had once been a 
sentient being done to death by some huge Goliath 
of the deep. 

Dr. Tarnier, the chief medical officer of the port — 
a man who is beloved and respected by the whole 
population of Falaise — stood ready to begin his 
dreadful task. I had ascertained that he had obtained 
permission to go down alone into the hold of death — 
an exploration attended with the utmost physical 
risk. 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


93 


He was clad in a suit of india-rubber clothing, and 
over his arm was folded a large tarpaulin sheet lined 
with carbolic wool, one of half a dozen such sheets 
lying at his feet. 

The difficult work of unsealing the conning tower 
was then proceeded with in the presence of Admiral 
de Saint Vilquier, whose prowess as a midshipman 
is still remembered by British Crimean veterans — 
and of the Mayor of Falaise, M. Jacques de 
Wissant. 

At last there came a guttural exclamation of 
“ Cay estf” and Dr. Tarnier stepped downwards, to 
emerge a moment later with the first body, obviously 
that of the gallant Commander Dupre, who was 
found, as it was expected he would be, in the conning 
tower. 

Once more the doctor’s burly figure disappeared, 
once more he eme/ged, tenderly bearing a slighter, 
lighter burden, obviously the boyish form of Lieu- 
tenant Paritot, who was found close to Commander 
Dupre. 

The tide was rising rapidly, but two more bodies — 
this time with the help of a webbed band cleverly 
designed by Dr. Tarnier with a view to the purpose 
— were lifted from the inner portion of the sub- 
marine. 

The four bodies, rather to the disappointment of 
the large crowd which had gradually gathered on 
the quays, were not taken directly to the shore, to the 
great hall where Falaise is to mourn her dead sons ; 
one by one they were reverently conveyed, by the 
Admiral’s orders, to a barge which was once used as 
a hospital ward for sick sailors, and which is close to 
the mouth of the harbour. Thencq, when all twelve 


94 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


bodies have been recovered — that is, in three or four 
days, for the work is only to be proceeded with at 
night, — they will be taken to the Salle d’Armes, there 
to await the official obsequies. 

On the morning following the night during 
which the last body was lifted from within the 
Neptune^ there ran a curious rumour through 
the fishing quarter of the town. It was said 
that thirteen bodies — not twelve, as declared 
the official report — had been taken out of the 
Neptune, It was declared on the authority of 
one of the seamen — a Gascon, be it noted — 
who had been there on that first night, that 
five, not four, bodies had been conveyed to the 
hospital barge. 

But the rumour, though it found an echo in 
the French press, was not regarded as worth 
an official denial, and it received its final 
quietus on the day of the official obsequies, 
when it was at once seen that the number of 
ammunition wagons heading the great pro- 
cession was twelve. 

As long as tradition endures in the life of 
the town, Falaise will remember the Neptune 
funeral procession. Not only was every navy 
in the world represented, but also every strand 
of that loosely woven human fabric we civilized 
peoples call a nation. 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 95 

Through the long line of soldiers, each man 
with his arms reversed, walked the official 
mourners, while from the fortifications there 
boomed the minute gun. 

First the President of the French Republic, 
with, to his right, the Minister of Marine; and 
close behind them the stiff, still vigorous, figure 
of old Admiral de Saint Vilquier, By his 
side walked the Mayor of Falaise — so mortally 
pale, so what the French call undone, that the 
Admiral felt fearful lest his neighbour should 
be compelled to fall out. 

But Jacques de Wissant was not minded to 
fall out. 

The crowd looking on, especially the wives 
of those substantial citizens of the town who 
stood at their windows behind half-closed 
shutters and drawn blinds, stared down at the 
mayor with pitying concern. 

“He has a warm heart though a cold manner, 
murmured these ladies to one another, “and 
just now, you know, he is in great anxiety, for 
his wife — that beautiful Claire with whom he 
doesn’t get on very well — is in Italy, seriously 
ill of scarlet fever.” “Yes, and as soon as 
this sad ceremony is over, he will leave for 
the south — I hear that the President has 
offered him a seat in his saloon as far as 
Paris.” 


96 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

As the head of the procession at last stopped 
on the great parade ground where the last 
honours were to be rendered to the lowly yet 
illustrious dead, Jacques de Wissant straight- 
ened himself with an instinctive gesture, and 
his lips began to move. He was muttering to 
himself the speech he would soon have to 
deliver, and which he had that morning, 
making a great mental effort, committed to 
memory. 

And after the President had had his long, 
emotional, and flowery say ; and when the 
oldest of French admirals had stepped for- 
ward and, in a quavering voice, bidden the 
dead farewell on behalf of the Navy, it came 
to the turn of the Mayor of Falaise. 

He was there, he said, simply as the mouth- 
piece of his fellow-townsmen, and they, bowed 
as they were by deep personal grief, could say 
but little — they could indeed only murmur their 
eternal gratitude for the sympathy they had 
received, and were now receiving, from their 
countrymen and from the world. 

Then Jacques de Wissant gave a brief 
personal account of each of the ten seamen 
whom this vast concourse had gathered together 
to honour. It was noted by the curious in such 
things that he made no allusion to the two 
officers, to Commander Dupr6 and Lieutenant 


PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 


97 


Paritot ; doubtless he thought that they, after 
all, had been amply honoured in the preceding 
speeches. 

But though his care for the lowly heroes 
proved the Mayor of Falaise a good republi- 
can, he showed himself in the popular estima- 
tion also a scholar, for he wound up with the 
old tag — the grand old tag which inspired so 
many noble souls in the proudest of ancient 
empires and civilizations, and which will retain 
the power of moving and thrilling generations 
yet unborn in both the Western and the 
Eastern worlds : 

“ Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” 


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THE CHILD 



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THE CHILD 


1 

I T was close on eleven o’clock ; the July night 
was airless, and the last of that season’s 
great balls was taking place in Grosvenor 
Square. 

Mrs. Elwyn’s brougham came to a sudden 
halt in Green Street. Encompassed behind and 
before with close, intricate traffic, the carriage 
swung stiffiy on its old-fashioned springs, re- 
sponding to every movement of the fretted 
horse. 

Hugh Elwyn, sitting by his mother’s side, 
wondered a little impatiently why she remained 
so faithful to the old brougham which he could 
remember, or so it seemed to him, all his life. 
But he did not utter his thoughts aloud; he 
still went in awe of his mother, and he was 
proud, in a whimsical way, of her old-fash- 
ioned austerity of life, of her narrowness of 
vision, of her dislike of modern ways and new 
fashions. 

Mrs. Elwyn after her husband’s death had 

lOI 


102 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
given up the world. This was the first time 
since her widowhood that she and her son had 
dined out together ; but then the occasion was 
a very special one — they had been to dinner 
with the family of Elwyn’s fiancee, Winifred 
Fanshawe. 

Hugh Elwyn turned and looked at his 
mother. As he saw in the half-darkness the 
outlines of the delicately pure profile, framed 
in grey bands of hair covering the ears as it 
had been worn when Mrs. Elwyn was a girl 
upwards of forty years ago, he felt stirred with 
an unwonted tenderness, added to the respect 
with which he habitually regarded her. 

Since leaving Cavendish Square they had 
scarcely spoken the one to the other. The 
drive home was a short one, for they lived in 
South Street. It was tiresome that they should 
be held up in this way within a hundred yards 
of their own door. 

Suddenly the mother spoke. She put out 
her frail hand and laid it across her son’s strong 
brown fingers. She gazed earnestly into the 
good-looking face which was not as radiantly 
glad as she would have wished to see it — as 
indeed she had once seen her son’s face look, 
and as she could still very vividly remember 
her own husband’s face had looked during 
their short formal engagement nearly fifty years 


THE CHILD 


103 


ago. ‘‘I could not be better pleased, Hugh, 
if I had myself chosen your future wife.” 

Elwyn was a little amused as well as touched ; 
he was well aware that his mother, to all 
intents and purposes, had chosen Winifred. 
True, she had been but slightly acquainted 
with the girl before the engagement, but she 
had ‘‘known all about her,” and had been on 
terms of friendly acquaintance with Winifred’s 
grandmother all her long life. Elwyn remem- 
bered how his mother had pressed him to 
accept an invitation to a country house where 
Winifred Fanshawe was to be. But Mrs. Elwyn 
had never spoken to her son of her wishes until 
the day he had come and told her that he 
intended to ask Winifred to marry him, and 
then her unselfish joy had moved him and 
brought them very near to one another. 

When Hugh Elwyn was in London — he had 
been a great wanderer over the earth— he lived 
with his mother, and they were outwardly on 
the closest, most intimate terms of affection. 
But then Mrs. Elwyn never interfered with 
Hugh, as he understood his friends’ mothers 
so often interfered with them and with their 
private affairs. This doubtless was why they 
were, and remained, on such ideal terms 
together. 

Suddenly Mrs. Elwyn again spoke, but she 


104 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


did not turn round and look tenderly at her 
son as she had done when speaking of his 
future wife — this time she gazed straight before 
her: ‘^s not Winifred a cousin of Mrs. 
Bellair?” 

“Yes, there’s some kind of connection 
between the Fanshawes and the Bellairs.” 

Hugh Elwyn tried to make his voice uncon- 
cerned, but he failed, and he knew that he 
had failed. His mother’s question had dis- 
turbed him, and taken him greatly by sur- 
prise. 

“ I wondered whether they are friends ? ” 

“I have never heard Winifred mention her,” 
he said shortly. “Yes, I have — I remember 
now that she told me the Bellairs had sent her 
a present the very day after our engagement 
was in the Morning Post,'" 

“Then I suppose you will have to see some- 
thing of them after your marriage?” 

“You mean the Bellairs? Yes — no. I don’t 
think that follows, mother.” 

“ Do you see anything of them now ? ” 

“No” — he again hesitated, and again ate 
his word — “that is — yes. I met them 
some weeks ago. But I don’t think we 
are likely to see much of them after our 
marriage.” 

He would have given the world to feel that 


THE CHILD 


105 


his voice was betraying nothing of the dis- 
comfort he was feeling. 

‘‘ I hope not, Hugh. Mrs. Bellair would 
not be a suitable friend for Winifred — or — or 
for any young married woman.” 

“Mother!” Elwyn only uttered the one 
word, but anger, shame, and self-reproach 
were struggling in the tone in which he 
uttered that one word. “You are wrong, 
indeed, you are quite wrong — I mean about 
Fanny Bellair.” 

“My dear,” she said gently, but her voice 
quivered, “I do not think I am wrong. In- 
deed, I know I am right.” Neither had ever 
seen the other so moved. “My dear,” again 
she said the two quiet words that may mean so 
much or so little, “you know that I never 
spoke to you of the matter. I tried never 
even to think of it, and yet, Hugh, it made 
me very anxious, very unhappy. But to-night, 
looking at that sweet girl, I felt I must speak.” 

She waited a moment, and then added in a 
constrained voice, “I do not judge you, 
Hugh.” 

“ No ! ” he cried, “ but you judge her ! And 
it’s so unfair, mother — so horribly unfair ! ” 

He had turned round ; he was forcing his 
mother to look at his now moody, unhappy 
face. 


106 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Mrs. Elwyn shrank back and closed her lips 
tightly. Her expression recalled to her son 
the look which used to come over her face 
when, as a petted, over cared-for only child, 
he asked her for something which she believed 
it would he bad for him to have. From that 
look there had been, in old days, no appeal. 
But now he felt that he must say something 
more. His manhood demanded it of him. 

“Mother,” he said earnestly, “as you have 
spoken to me of the matter, I feel I must have 
it out with you ! Please believe me when I 
say that you are being unjust — indeed, cruelly 
so. I was to blame all through — from the very 
beginning to the very end.” 

“You must allow me,” she said in a low 
tone, “to be the judge of that, Hugh.” She 
added deprecatingly, “ This discussion is pain- 
ful, and — and very distasteful to me.” 

Her son leant back, and choked down the 
words he was about to utter. He knew well 
that nothing he could say would change or 
even modify his mother’s point of view. But 
oh ! why had she done this ? Why had she 
chosen to-night, of all nights, to rend the veil 
which had always hung, so decently, between 
them. He had felt happy to-night — not madly, 
foolishly happy, as so many men feel at such 
moments, but reasonably, decorously pleased 


THE CHILD 


107 


with his present and his future. He was 
making a mariage de convenances^ but there 
had been another man on the lists, a younger 
man than himself, and that had added a most 
pleasing zest to the pursuit. He, aided of course 
by Winifred Fanshawe’s prudent parents, had 
won — won a very pretty, well-bred, well-behaved 
girl to wife. What more could a man of forty- 
one, who had lived every moment of his life, 
ask of that providence which shapes our ends? 

The traffic suddenly parted, and the horse 
leapt forward. 

As they reached their own front door, Mrs. 
Elwyn again spoke: ‘‘Perhaps I ought to 
add,” she said hurriedly, “that I know one 
thing to Mrs. BellaiPs credit. I am told that 
she is a most devoted and careful mother to 
that little boy of hers. I heard to-day that 
the child is seriously ill, and that she and 
the child’s nurse are doing everything for 
him.” 

Mrs. Elwyn’s voice had softened, curiously. 
She had an old-fashioned prejudice against 
trained nurses. 

Hugh Elwyn helped his mother into the 
house ; then, in the hall, he bent down and 
just touched her cheek with his lips. 

“Won’t you come up into the drawing- 
room? Just for a few minutes?” she asked ; 


108 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

there was a note of deep, yearning disappoint- 
ment in her voice, and her face looked grey 
and tired, very different from the happy, placid 
air it had worn during the little dinner 
party. 

“No, thank you, mother, I won’t come up 
just now. I think I’ll go out again for half an 
hour. I haven’t walked at all to-day, and it’s 
so hot — I feel I shouldn’t sleep if I turn in 
now.” 

He was punishing his mother as he had 
seen other sons punishing their mothers, but 
as he himself had never before to-night been 
tempted to punish his. Nay, more, as Hugh 
Elwyn watched her slow ascent up the stair- 
case, he told himself that she had hurt 
and angered him past entire forgiveness. He 
had sometimes suspected that she knew of 
that fateful episode in his past life, but he had 
never supposed that she would speak of it to 
him, especially not now, after years had gone 
by, and when, greatly to please her, he was 
about to make what is called a “suitable” 
marriage. 

He was just enough to know that his mother 
had hurt herself by hurting him, but that did 
not modify his feelings of anger and of surprise 
at what she had done. Of course she thought 
she knew everything there was to know, but 


THE CHILD 109 

how much there had been that she had never 
even suspected ! 

Those words — that admission — as to Fanny 
Bellair being a good mother would never have 
passed Mrs. Elwyn’s lips — they would never 
even have been credited by her had she known 
the truth — the truth, that is, as to the child to 
whom Mrs. Bellair was so passionately devoted, 
and who now, it seemed, was ailing. That secret, 
and Hugh Elwyn thanked God, not irreverently, 
that it was so, was only shared by two human 
beings, that is by Fanny and himself. And 
perhaps, Fanny, like himself, had managed by 
now almost to forget it. . . . 

Elwyn swung out of the house, he walked 
up South Street, and so into Park Lane and 
over to the Park railings. There was still a 
great deal of traffic in the roadway, but the 
pavements were deserted. 

As he began to walk quickly westward, the 
past came back and overwhelmed him as with 
a great flood of mingled memories. And it 
was not, as his mother would probably have 
visioned it, a muddy spate filled with unclean 
things. Rather was it a flood of exquisite 
spring waters, instinct with the buoyant head- 
long rushes of youth, and filled with clear, 
happy shallows, in which retrospectively he lay 
and sunned himself in the warmth of what had 


110 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
been a great love — love such as AVinifred 
Fanshawe, with her thin, complaisant nature, 
would never bestow. 

The mother’s imprudent words of unneces- 
sary warning had brought back to her son 
everything she had hoped was now, if not 
obliterated, then repented of; but Elwyn’s heart 
was filled to-night with a vague tenderness for 
the half-forgotten woman whom he had loved 
awhile with so passionate and absorbing a love, 
and to whom, under cover of that poor and 
wilted thing, his conscience, he had ultimately 
behaved so ill. 

Hugh Elwyn’s mind travelled back across 
the years, to the very beginning of his involved 
account with honour — that account which he 
believed to be now straightened out. 

Jim Bellair had been Elwyn’s friend — first 
college friend and then favourite ‘‘pal.” When 
Bellair had fallen head over ears in love with 
a girl still in the schoolroom, a girl not even 
pretty, but with wonderful auburn hair and 
dark, startled-looking eyes, and had finally 
persuaded, cajoled, badgered her into saying 
“Yes,’* it was Hugh Elwyn who had been 
Bellair’s rather sulky best man. Small wonder 
that the bridegroom had half-jokingly left his 
young wife in Elwyn’s charge when he had had 
to go half across the world on business that 


THE CHILD 


111 


could not be delayed, while she stayed behind 
to nurse her father who was ill. 

It was then, with mysterious, uncanny sudden- 
ness, that the mischief had begun. There had 
been something wild and untamed in Fanny 
Bellair — something which had roused in 
Elwyn the hunter’s instinct, an instinct hitherto 
unslaked by over easy victories. And then 
Chance, that great, cynical goddess which 
plays so great a part in civilized life, had flung 
first one opportunity and then another into his 
eager, grasping hands. 

Fanny’s father had died ; and she had been 
lonely and in sorrow. Careless friends, how- 
ever kind, do not care to see much of those 
who mourn, but he, Hugh Elwyn, had not 
been careless, nay, he had been careful to see 
more, not less, of his friend’s wife in this her 
first great grief, and she had been moved to 
the heart by his sympathy. 

It was by Elwyn ’s advice that Mrs. Bellair 
had taken a house not far from London that 
lovely summer. 

Ah, that little house ! Elwyn could remem- 
ber every bush, almost every flower that had 
flowered, in the walled garden during those 
enchanted weeks. Against the background of 
his mind every ornament, every odd piece of 
furniture in that old cottage, stood out as 


112 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
having been the silent, it had seemed at the 
time the kindly, understanding witnesses of 
what had by then become an exquisite friend- 
ship. He, the man, had known almost from 
the first where they too were drifting, but she, 
the woman, had slipped into love as a wanderer 
at night slips suddenly into a deep and hidden 
pool. 

In a story book they would both have gone 
away openly together — but somehow the 
thought of doing such a thing never seriously 
occurred to Elwyn. He was far too fond of 
Bellair — it seemed absurd to say that now, 
but the truth, especially the truth of what has 
been, is often absurd. 

Elwyn had contented himself with stealing 
Bellair’s wife ; he had no desire to put public 
shame and ridicule upon his friend. And 
fortune, favouring him, had prolonged the 
other man's enforced absence. 

And then? And then at last Bellair had 
come back, — and trouble began. As to many 
things, nay, as to most things which have 
to do with the flesh rather than the spirit, 
men are more fastidiously delicate than are 
women. There had come months of misery, 
of revolt, and, on Elwyn’s part, of dulling 
love. . . . 

Then, once more. Chance gave him an un- 


113 


THE CHILD 
looked -for opportunity — an opportunity of 
escape from what had become to him an 
intolerable position. 

The war broke out, and Hugh Elwyn was 
among the very first of those gallant fellows 
who volunteered during the dark November 
of ’99, 

By a curious irony of fate, the troopship that 
bore him to South Africa had Bellair also on 
board, but owing to Elwyn’s secret decision — he 
was far the cleverer man of the two — he and 
his friend were no longer bound together by 
that wordless intimacy which is the basis of 
any close tie among men. By the time the 
two came back from Africa they had become 
little more than cordial acquaintances. Mar- 
riage, so Bellair sometimes told himself rue- 
fully, generally plays the devil with a man’s 
bachelor friendships. He was a kindly, gene- 
rous hearted soul, who found much comfort in 
platitudes. . . . 

But that, alas ! had not been the end. On 
Elwyn’s return home there had come to him a 
violent, overmastering revival of his passion. 
Again he and Fanny met — again they loved. 
Then one terrible day she came and told him, 
with stricken eyes, what he sometimes hoped, 
even now, had not been true — that she was 
about to have a child, and that it would be his 
8 


114 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

child. At that moment, as he knew well, 
Mrs. Bellair had desired ardently to go away 
with him, openly. But he had drawn back, 
assuring himself — and this time honestly — that 
his shrinking from that course, now surely the 
only honest course, was not wholly ignoble. 
Were he to do such a thing it would go far 
to kill his mother — worse, it would embitter 
every moment of the life which remained 
to her. 

For a while Elwyn went in deadly fear lest 
Fannyshould tell her husband the truth. But the 
weeks and months drifted by, and she remained 
silent. And as he had gone about that year, 
petted and made much of by his friends and 
acquaintances — for did he not bear on his worn, 
handsome face that look which war paints on 
the face of your sensitive modern man ? — he 
heard whispered the delightful news that after 
five years of marriage kind Jim and dear Fanny 
Bellair were at last going to be made happy — 
happy in the good old way. 

Among the other memories of that hateful 
time, one came back, to-night, with especial 
vividness. Hurrying home across the park 
one afternoon, seven years ago now, almost to 
a day, he had suddenly run up against 
Bellair. 

They had talked for a few moments on in- 


THE CHILD 


115 


different things, and then Jim had said shyly, 
awkwardly, but with a beaming look on his 
face, ‘‘You know about Fanny? Of course I 
can’t help feeling a bit anxious, but she’s so 
healthy — not like those women who have always 
something the matter with them ! ” And he, 
Elwyn, had gripped the other man’s hand, and 
muttered the congratulation which was being 
asked of him. 

That meeting, so full of shameful irony, had 
occurred about a week before the child’s birth. 
Elwyn had meant to be away from London — 
but Chance, so carelessly kind a friend to him 
in the past, at last proved cruel, for surely it 
was Chance and Chance alone that led him, on 
the very eve of the day he was starting for 
Norway, straight across the quiet square, com- 
posed of high Georgian houses, where the 
Bellairs still lived. 

To-night, thanks to his mother, every inci- 
dent of that long, agonizing night came back. 
He could almost feel the tremor of half fear, 
half excitement, which had possessed him when 
he had suddenly become aware that his friends’ 
house was still lit up and astir, and that fresh 
straw lay heaped up in prodigal profusion in 
the road where, a little past the door, was drawn 
up a doctor’s one-horse brougham. Even then 
he might have taken another way, but some- 


116 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


thing had seemed to drive him on, past the 
house, — and there Elwyn, staying his deadened 
footsteps, had heard float down to him from 
widely opened windows above, certain sounds, 
muffled moans, telling of a physical extremity 
which even now he winced to remember. 

He had waited on and on — longing to 
escape, and yet prisoned between imaginary 
bounds within which he paced up and down, 
filled with an obscure desire to share, in the 
measure that was possible to him, her torment. 

At last, in the orange, dust-laden dawn of a 
London summer morning, the front door of the 
house had opened, and Elwyn had walked for- 
ward, every nerve quivering with suspense and 
fatigue, feeling that he must know. . . . 

A great doctor, with whose face he was 
vaguely acquainted, had stepped out accom- 
panied by Bellair — Bellair with ruffled hair 
and red-rimmed eyes, but looking if tired then 
content, even more, triumphant. Elwyn had 
heard him say the words, ‘‘Thanks awfully. 
I shall never forget how kind you have been. 
Sir Joseph. Yes, I’ll go to bed at once. I know 
you must have thought me rather stupid.” 

And then Bellair had suddenly seen Elwyn 
standing on the pavement ; he had accepted 
unquestioningly the halting explanation that 
he was on his way home from a late party. 


THE CHILD 


117 


and had happened, as it were, that way. “It’s 
a boy ! ” he had said exultantly, although 
Elwyn had asked him no question, and then, 
“Of course I’m awfully pleased, but I’m dog 
tired ! She’s had a bad time, poor girl — but 
it’s all right now, thank God ! Come in and 
have a drink, Hugo.” 

But Elwyn had shaken his head. Again 
he had gripped his old friend’s hand, as he 
had done a week before, and again he had 
muttered the necessary words of congratula- 
tion. Then, turning on his heel, he had 
gone home, and spent the rest of the night 
in desultory packing. 

That was just seven years ago, and Elwyn 
had never seen Fanny’s child. He had been 
away from England for over a year, and when 
he came back he learned that the Bellairs were 
away, living in the country, where they had 
taken a house for the sake of their boy. 

As time had gone on, Elwyn and his 
friends had somehow drifted apart, as people 
are apt to drift apart in the busy idleness 
of the life led by the fortunate Bellairs and 
Elwyns of this world. Fanny avoided Hugh 
Elwyn, and Elwyn avoided Fanny, but they 
two only were aware of this. It was the last 
of the many secrets which they had once 


118 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

shared. When he and Bellair by chance 
met alone, all the old cordiality and even 
the old affection seemed to come back, if not 
to Elwyn then to the other man. 

And now the child, to whom it seemed not 
only Fanny but Jim Bellair also was so de- 
voted, was ill, and he, Hugh Elwyn, had been 
the last to hear of it. He felt vaguely remorseful 
that this should be so. There had been years 
when nothing that affected Bellair could have 
left him indifferent, and a time when the 
slightest misadventure befalling Fanny would 
have called forth his eager, helpful sympathy. 

How strange it would be — he quickened his 
footsteps — if this child, with whom he was 
at once remotely and intimately concerned, 
were to die ! He could not help feeling, deep 
down in his heart, that this would be, if a 
tragic, then a natural solution of a painful and 
unnatural problem — and then, quite suddenly, he 
felt horribly ashamed of having allowed himself 
to think this thought, to wish this awful wish. 

Why should he not go now, at once, to 
Manchester Square, and inquire as to the little 
boy’s condition ? It was not really late, not 
yet midnight. He could go and leave a 
message, perhaps even scribble a line to Jim 
Bellair explaining that he had come round 
as soon as he had heard of the child’s illness. 


THE CHILD 


119 


II 

When Hugh Elwyn reached the familiar 
turning whence he could see the Bellairs’ high 
house, time seemed to have slipped back. 

The house was all lit up as it had been on 
that summer night seven years ago. Every- 
thing was the same — even to the heaped-up 
straw into which his half-reluctant feet now 
sank. There was even a doctor’s carriage 
drawn up a little way from the front door, but 
this time it was a smart electric brougham. 

He rang the bell, and as the door opened, 
Jim Bellair suddenly came into the hall, 
out of a room which Elwyn knew to be the 
smoking-room — a room in which he and Fanny 
had at one time spent long hours in contented, 
nay in ecstatic, dual solitude. 

“I have come to inquire — I only heard to- 
night — ” he began awkwardly, but the other 
cut him short, ‘‘Yes, yes, I understand — it’s 
awfully good of you, Elwyn ! I’m awfully 
glad to see you. Come in here — ” and per- 
force he had to follow. “The doctor’s upstairs 
— I mean Sir Joseph Pixton. Fanny was de- 
termined to have him, and he very kindly 
came, though of course he’s not a child’s 


120 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

doctor. He’s annoyed because Fanny won’t 
have trained nurses ; but I don’t suppose any- 
thing would make any difference. It’s just 
a fight — a fight for the little chap’s life — that’s 
what it is, and we don’t know yet who’ll win.” 

He spoke in quick, short sentences, Staring 
with widely open eyes at his erstwhile friend 
as he spoke. ^‘Pneumonia — I suppose you 
don’t know anything about it ? I thought 
children never had such things, especially not 
in hot weather.” 

I had a frightful illness when I was about 
your boy’s age,” said Elwyn eagerly. ‘Ht’s the 
first thing I can really remember. They called 
it inflammation of the lungs. I was awfully 
bad. My mother talks of it now, some- 
times.” 

^‘Does she?” Bellair spoke wearily. “If 
only one could do something,” he went on. 
“ But you see the worst of it is that I can do 
nothing — nothing ! Fanny hates my being up 
there — she thinks it upsets the boy. He’s 
such a jolly little chap, Hugo. You know 
we called him Peter after Fanny’s father?” 

Elwyn moved towards the door. He felt 
dreadfully moved by the other’s pain. He told 
himself that after all he could do no good 
by staying, and he felt so ashamed, such 
a cur 


THE CHILD 


121 


“You don’t want to go away yet?” There 
was sharp chagrin, reproachful dismay, in 
Bellair’s voice. Elwyn remembered that in 
old days Jim had always hated being alone. 
“Won’t you stay and hear what Pixton says? 
Or — or are you in a hurry ? ” 

Elwyn turned round. “Of course I’ll stay,” 
he said briefly. 

Bellair spared him thanks, but he began 
walking about the room restlessly. At last 
he went to the door and set it ajar. “ I want 
to hear when Sir Joseph comes down,” he 
explained, and even as he spoke there came 
the sound of heavy, slow footsteps on the 
staircase. 

Bellair went out and brought the great 
man in. 

“I’ve told Mrs. Bellair that we ought to 
have Bewdley ! He knows a great deal more 
about children than I can pretend to do ; and 
I propose, with your leave, to go off now, 
myself, and if possible bring him back.” The 
old doctor’s keen eyes wandered as he spoke 
from Bellair’s fair face to Hugh Elwyn’s 
dark one. “Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps, 
Mr. Bellair, you would get someone to tele- 
phone to Dr. Bewdley ’s house to say that I’m 
coming ? It might save a few moments.” 

As Bellair left the room, the doctor turned 


122 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

to Elwyn and said abruptly, “ I hope you’ll be 
able to stay with your brother? All this is 
very hard on him ; Mrs. Bellair will scarcely 
allow him into the child’s room, and though 
that, of course, is quite right. I’m sorry for the 
man. He’s wrapped up in the child.” 

And when Bellair came back from accom- 
panying the old doctor to his carriage, there 
was a smile on his face — the first smile which 
had been there for a long time: “ Pixton 
thinks you’re my brother ! He said, ‘ I hope 
your brother will manage to stay with you for 
a bit.’ Now I’ll go up and see Fanny. 
Pixton is certainly more hopeful than the last 
man we had — ” 

Bellair’s voice had a confident ring. Elwyn 
remembered with a pang that Jim had always 
been like that — always believed, that is, that 
the best would come to pass. 

When left alone, Elwyn began walking rest- 
lessly up and down, much as his friend had 
walked up and down a few minutes ago. 
Something of the excitement of the fight 
going on above had entered into him ; he now 
desired ardently that the child should live, 
should emerge victor from the g'rim struggle. 

At last Bellair came back. ‘‘ Fanny believes 
that this is the night of crisis,” he said slowly. 
All the buoyancy had left his voice. ‘‘But — 


123 


THE CHILD 

but Elwyn, I hope you won’t mind — the fact 
is she’s set her heart on your seeing him. I 
told her what you told me about yourself, I 
mean your illness as a child, and it’s cheered 
her up amazingly, poor girl ! Perhaps you 
could tell her a little bit more about it, though 
I like to think that if the boy gets through 
it ” — his voice broke suddenly — ‘‘she won’t re- 
member this — this awful time. But don’t let’s 
keep her waiting — ” He took Elwyn’s consent 
for granted, and quickly the two men walked 
up the stairs of the high house, on and on 
and on, 

“It’s a good way up,” whispered Bellair, 
“but Fanny was told that a child’s nursery 
couldn’t be too high. So we had the four 
rooms at the top thrown into two.” 

They were now on the dimly-lighted landing. 
“Wait one moment — wait one moment, 
Hugo.” Bellair’s voice had dropped to a 
low, gruff whisper. 

Elwyn remained alone. He could hear 
slight movements going on in the room into 
which Bellair had just gone ; and then there 
also fell on his ears the deep, regular sound 
of snoring. Who could be asleep in the 
house at such a moment ? The sound dis- 
turbed him ; it seemed to add a touch of 
grotesque horror to the situation. 


124 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Suddenly the handle of the door in front 
of him moved round, and he heard Fanny 
Bellair’s voice, unnaturally controlled and 
calm. ‘‘I sent Nanna to bed, Jim. The 
poor old creature was absolutely worn out. 
And then I would so much rather be alone 
when Sir Joseph brings back the other doctor. 
He admits— I mean Sir Joseph does — that 
to-night is the crisis.” 

The door swung widely open, and Elwyn, 
moving instinctively back, visualized the scene 
before him very distinctly. 

There was a screen on the right hand, a 
screen covered, as had been the one in his 
own nursery, with a patchwork of pictures 
varnished over. 

Mrs. Bellair stood between the screen and 
the pale blue wall. Her slim figure was clad 
in some sort of long white garment, and 
over it she wore an apron, which he noticed 
was far too large for her. Her hair, the 
auburn hair which had been her greatest 
beauty, and which he had once loved to praise 
and to caress, was fastened back, massed up 
in as small a compass as possible. That, and 
the fact that her face was expressionless, so 
altered her in Elwyn s eyes as to give him 
an uncanny feeling that the woman before 
him was not the woman he had known, had 


THE CHILD 


125 


loved, had left, — but a stranger, only bound 
to him by the slender link of a common 
humanity. 

She waited some moments as if listening, 
then she came out on to the landing, and shut 
the door behind her very softly. 

The sentence of conventional sympathy half 
formed on Elwyn’s lips died into nothingness ; 
as little could he have offered words of cheer 
to one who was being tortured ; but in the dim 
light their hands met and clasped tightly. 

‘‘Hugo?” she said, “I want to ask you 
something. You told Jim just now that you 
were once very ill as a child, — ill like this, 
ill like my child. I want you to tell me 
honestly if that is true ? I mean, were you 
very, very ill ? ” 

He answered her in the same way, without 
preamble, baldly: “ It is quite true,” he said. 
“ I was very ill — so ill that my mother for one 
moment thought that I was dead. But re- 
member, Fanny, that in those days they did 
not know nearly as much as they do now. 
Your boy has two chances for every one that 
I had then.” 

“Would you mind coming in and seeing 
him ? ” Her voice faltered, it had become 
more human, more conventional, in quality. 

“Of course I will see him,” he said. “I 


126 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

want to see him,— dear.” She had suddenly 
become to him once more the thing nearest 
his heart ; once more the link between them 
became of the closest, most intimate nature, 
and yet, or perhaps because of its intensity, 
the sense of nearness which had sprung at her 
touch into being was passionless. 

The face which had been drained of all ex- 
pression quickened into agonized feeling. She 
tried to withdraw her hand from his, but he 
held it firmly, and it was hand in hand that 
together they walked into the room. 

As they came round the screen behind which 
lay the sick child, Bellair went over to the 
farthest of the three windows and stood there 
with crossed arms staring out into the night. 

The little boy lay on his right side, and as 
they moved round to the edge of the large cot, 
Elwyn, with a sudden tightening of the throat, 
became aware that the child was neither asleep 
nor, as he in his ignorance had expected to find 
him, sunk in stupor or delirium. But the 
small, dark face, framed by the white pillow, 
was set in lines of deep, unchildlike gravity, 
and in the eyes which now gazed incuriously 
at Elwyn there was a strange, watchful light 
which seemed to illumine that which was within 
rather than that which was without. 

As is always the case with a living creature 


THE CHILD 


127 


near to death, little Peter Bellair looked very 
lonely. 

Then Elwyn, moving nearer still, seemed — 
or so at least Fanny Bellair will ever believe 
— to take possession of the moribund child, 
yielding him as he did so something of his own 
strength to help him through the crisis then 
imminent. And indeed the little creature 
whose forehead, whose clenched left hand lying 
on the sheet were beginning to glisten with 
sweat, appeared to become merged in some 
strange way with himself. Merged, not with 
the man he was to-day, but with the Hugh 
Elwyn of thirty years back, who, as a lonely 
only child, had lived so intensely secret, 
imaginative a life, peopling the prim alleys 
of Hyde Park with fairies, imps, tricksy 
hobgoblins in whom he more than half be- 
lieved, and longing even then, as ever after, 
for the unattainable, never carelessly happy as 
his father and mother believed him to be. . . . 

Hugh Elwyn stayed with the Bellairs all 
that night. He shared the sick suspense the 
hour of the crisis brought, and he was present 
when the specialist said the fateful words, ‘‘I 
think, under God, this child will live.” 

When at last Elwyn left the house, clad in an 
old light coat of Bellair’s in order that the folk 
early astir should not see that he was wearing 


128 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

evening clothes, he felt happier, more light- 
hearted, than he had done for years. 

His life had been like a crowded lumber- 
room, full of useless and worn-out things he 
had accounted precious, while he had ignored 
the one possession that really mattered and 
that linked him, not only with the future, but 
with the greatest reality of his past. 

The inevitable pain which this suddenly dis- 
covered treasure was to bring was mercifully 
concealed from him, as also the sombre fact 
that he would henceforth go lonely all his life, 
perforce obliged to content himself with the 
crumbs of another man’s feast. For Peter 
Bellair, high-strung, imaginative, as he will 
ever be, will worship the strong, kindly, 
simple man he believes to be his father, but 
to that dear father’s friend he will only yield 
the careless affection born of gratitude for 
much kindness. 

In the matter of the broken engagement, 
Hugh Elwyn was more fairly treated by the 
men and women whom the matter concerned, 
or who thought it concerned them, than are 
the majority of recusant lovers. 

‘‘Hugh Elwyn has never been quite the 
same since the war, and you know Winifred 
Fanshawe really liked the other man the 


THE CHILD 


129 


best,” so said those who spent an idle 
moment in discussing the matter, and they 
generally added, ‘‘Its a good thing that he’s 
spending the summer with his old friends, the 
Bellairs. They’re living very quietly just now, 
for their little boy has been dreadfully ill, so 
it’s just the place for poor old Hugo to get 
over it all ! ” 


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ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


I 

‘‘ T N this matter of the railway James 

X Mottram has proved a false friend, a very 
traitor to me ! ” 

Charles Nagle’s brown eyes shone with 
anger ; he looked loweringly at his compan- 
ions, and they, a beautiful young woman 
and an old man dressed in the sober garb 
of a Catholic ecclesiastic of that day, glanced 
at one another apprehensively. 

All England was then sharply divided into 
two camps, the one composed of those who 
welcomed with enthusiasm the wonderful new 
invention which obliterated space, the other 
of those who dreaded and abhorred the coming 
of the railroads. 

Charles Nagle got up and walked to the 
end of the terrace. He stared down into the 
wooded combe, or ravine, below, and noted 
with sullen anger the signs of stir and activity 
in the narrow strip of wood which till a few 
weeks before had been so still, so entirely 
133 


134 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
remote from even the quiet human activities 
of 1835. 

At last he turned round, pirouetting on his 
heel with a quick movement, and his good 
looks impressed anew each of the two who 
sat there with him. Eighty years ago beauty 
of line and colour were allowed to tell in 
masculine apparel, and this young Dorset 
squire delighted in fine clothes. Though 
November was far advanced it was a mild day, 
and Charles Nagle wore a bright blue coat, 
cut, as was then the fashion, to show off the 
points of his elegant figure — of his slender 
waist and his broad shoulders ; as for the 
elaborately frilled waistcoat, it terminated in 
an India muslin stock, wound many times 
round his neck. He looked a foppish Londoner 
rather than what he was — an honest country 
gentleman who had not journeyed to the 
capital for some six years, and then only to 
see a great physician. 

‘‘’Twas a most unneighbourly act on the 
part of James — he knows it well enough, for 
we hardly see him now ! ” He addressed his 
words more particularly to his wife, and he 
spoke more gently than before. 

The old priest — his name was Dorriforth — 
looked uneasily from his host to his hostess. 
He felt that both these young people, whom 


135 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 
he had known from childhood, and whom he 
loved well, had altered during the few weeks 
which had gone by since he had last seen 
them. Rather — he mentally corrected himself 
— it was the wife, Catherine, who was changed. 
Charles Nagle was much the same ; poor 
Charles would never be other, for he belonged 
to the mysterious company of those who, 
physically sound, are mentally infirm, and 
shunned by their more fortunate fellows. 

But Charles Nagle’s wife, the sweet young 
woman who for so long had been content, 
nay glad, to share this pitiful exile, seemed 
now to have escaped, if not in body then in 
mind, from the place where her sad, monoto- 
nous duty lay. 

She did not at once answer her husband ; 
but she looked at him fixedly, her hand 
smoothing nervously the skirt of her pretty 
gown. 

Mrs. Nagle’s dress also showed a care and 
research unusual in that of the country lady 
of those days. This was partly no doubt 
owing to her French blood — her grandparents 
had been dmigrds — and to the fact that Charles 
liked to see her in light colours. The gown 
she was now wearing on this mild November 
day was a French flowered silk, the spoil of 
a smuggler who pursued his profitable calling 


136 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

on the coast hard by. The short, high bodice 
and puffed sleeves were draped with a scarf 
of Buckinghamshire lace which left, as was 
the fashion of those days, the wearer’s lovely 
shoulders bare. 

‘‘James Mottram,” she said at last, and^ 
with a heightened colour, “believes in progress, 
Charles. It is the one thing concerning which* 
you and your friend will never agree.” 

“ Friend ? ” he repeated moodily. “ Friend ! 
James Mottram has shown himself no friend 
of ours. And then I had rights in this matter 
— am I not his heir-at-law? I could prevent 
my cousin from touching a stone, or felling 
a tree, at the Eype. But ’tis his indifference 
to my feelings that angers me so. Why, I 
trusted the fellow as if he had been my 
brother ! ” 

“And James Mottram,” said the old priest 
authoritatively, “has always felt the same to 
you, Charles. Never forget that ! In all but 
name you are brothers. Were you not brought 
up together? Had I not the schooling of 
you both as lads ? ” He spoke with a good 
deal of feeling ; he had noticed — and the fact 
disturbed him — that Charles Nagle spoke in 
the past tense when referring to his affection 
for the absent man. 

“But surely, sir, you cannot approve that 


137 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 
this iron monster should invade our quiet 
neighbourhood ? ” exclaimed Charles im- 
patiently. 

Mrs. Nagle looked at the priest entreatingly. 
Did she by any chance suppose that he 
would be able to modify her husband’s violent 
feeling ? 

If I am to say the truth, Charles,” said Mr. 
Dorriforth mildly, ‘‘and you would not have 
me conceal my sentiments, then I believe the 
time will come when even you will be reconciled 
to this marvellous invention. Those who surely 
know declare that, thanks to these railroads, our 
beloved country will soon be all cultivated as 
is a garden. Nay, perhaps others of our 
Faith, strangers, will settle here ” 

“Strangers?” repeated Charles Nagle 
sombrely, “I wish no strangers here. Even 
now there are too many strangers about.” 
He looked round as if he expected those 
strangers of whom the priest had spoken to 
appear suddenly from behind the yew hedges 
which stretched away, enclosing Catherine 
Nagle’s charming garden, to the left of 
the plateau on which stood the old manor- 
house. 

“Nay, nay,” he repeated, returning to his 
grievance, “never had I expected to find 
James Mottram a traitor to his order. As 


138 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
for the folk about here, they're bewitched ! 
They believe that this puffing devil will make 
them all rich ! I could tell them different ; 
but, as you know, there are reasons why I 
should not.” 

The priest bent his head gravely. The 
Catholic gentry of those days were not on 
comfortable terms with their neighbours. In 
spite of the fact that legally they were now 
‘‘emancipated,” any malicious person could 
still make life intolerable to them. The rail- 
way mania was at its beginnings, and it would 
have been especially dangerous for Charles 
Nagle to take, in an active sense, the un- 
popular side. 

In other parts of England, far from this 
Dorset countryside, railroads had brought 
with them a revival of trade. It was hoped 
that the same result would follow here, and 
a long strip of James Mottram’s estate had 
been selected as being peculiarly suitable for 
the laying down of the iron track which was 
to connect the nearest town with the sea. 

Unfortunately the land in question consisted 
of a wood which formed the boundary-line 
where Charles Nagle’s property marched with 
that of his kinsman and co-religionist, James 
Mottram ; and Nagle had taken the matter 
very ill indeed. He was now still suffering, 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 139 

in a physical sense, from the effects of the 
violent fit of passion which the matter had 
induced, and which even his wife, Catherine, 
had not been able to allay. . . . 

As he started walking* up and down with 
caged, impatient steps, she watched him with 
an uneasy, anxious glance. He kept shaking 
his head with a nervous movement, and he 
stared angrily across the ravine to the opposite 
hill, where against the skyline the large mass 
of Eype Castle, James Mottrams dwelling- 
place, stood four-square to the high winds 
which swept up from the sea. 

Suddenly he again strode over to the edge 
of the terrace: ‘‘I think I’ll go down and 
have a talk to those railroad fellows,” he 
muttered uncertainly. 

Charles knew well that this was among the 
forbidden things — the things he must not do ; 
yet occasionally Catherine, who was, as the 
poor fellow dimly realized, his mentor and 
guardian, as well as his outwardly submissive 
wife, would allow him to do that which was 
forbidden. 

But to-day such was not her humour. ‘‘Oh, 
no, Charles,” she said decidedly, “you cannot 
go down to the wood ! You must stay here 
and talk to Mr. Dorriforth.” 

“They were making hellish noises all last 


140 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
night; I had no rest at all,” Nagle went on 
inconsequently. ‘‘They were running their 
puffing devil up and down, ‘ The Bridport 
Wonder ’ — that’s what they call it, reverend 
sir,” he turned to the priest. 

Catherine again looked up at her husband, 
and their old friend saw that she bit her lip 
as if checking herself in impatient speech. 
Was she losing the sweetness of her temper, 
the evenness of disposition the priest had ever 
admired in her, and even reverenced ? 

Mrs. Nagle knew that the steam-engine 
had been run over the line for the first time 
the night before, for James Mottram and she 
had arranged that the trial should take place 
then rather than in the daytime. She also 
knew that Charles had slept through the long 
dark hours, those hours during which she 
had lain wide awake by his side listening to 
the strange new sounds made by the Bridport 
Wonder. Doubtless one of the servants had 
spoken of the matter in his hearing. 

She frowned, then felt ashamed. “ Charles, ” 
she said gently, “would it not be well for me 
to go down to the wood and discover when 
these railroad men are going away? They 
say in the village that their work is now 
done.” 

“Yes,” he cried eagerly. “A good idea. 


141 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

love ! And if they’re going off at once, you 
might order that a barrel of good ale be sent 
down to them. I’m informed that that’s what 
James has had done this very day. Now I’ve 
no wish that James should appear more gener- 
ous than I ! ” 

Catherine Nagle smiled, the indulgent kindly 
smile which a woman bestows on a loved child 
who suddenly betrays a touch of that vanity 
which is, in a child, so pardonable. 

She went into the house, and in a few 
moments returned with a pink scarf wound 
about her soft dark hair — hair dressed high, 
turned back from her forehead in the old pre- 
Revolution French mode, and not, as was 
then the fashion, arranged in stiff curls. 

The two men watched her walking swiftly 
along the terrace till she sank out of their sight, 
for a row of stone steps led down to an orchard 
planted with now leafless pear and apple trees, 
and surrounded with a quickset hedge. A 
wooden gate, with a strong lock to it, was 
set in this closely clipped hedge. It opened 
on a steep path which, after traversing two 
fields, terminated in the beech-wood where 
now ran the iron track of the new railroad. 

Catherine Nagle unlocked the orchard gate, 
and went through on to the field path. And 
then she slackened her steps. 


142 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

For hours, nay, for days, she had been long- 
ing for solitude, and now, for a brief space, 
solitude was hers. But, instead of bringing 
her peace, this respite from the companionship 
of Charles and of Mr. Dorriforth brought 
increased tumult and revolt. 

She had ardently desired the visit of the old 
priest, but his presence had bestowed, instead 
of solace, fret and discomfort. When he fixed 
on her his mild, penetrating eyes, she felt as if 
he were dragging into the light certain secret 
things which had been so far closely hidden 
within her heart, and concerning which she had 
successfully dulled her once sensitive con- 
science. 

The waking hours of the last two days had 
each been veined with torment. Her soul 
sickened as she thought of the morrow, St. 
Catherine’s Day, that is, her feast-day. The 
dmigreSy Mrs. Nagle’s own people, had in exile 
jealousy kept up their own customs, and to 
Charles Nagle’s wife the twenty-fifth day of 
November had always been a day of days, 
what her birthday is to a happy Englishwoman. 
Even Charles always remembered the date, 
and in concert with his faithful man-servant, 
Collins, sent to London each year for a pretty 
jewel. The housefolk, all of whom had learnt 
to love their mistress, and who helped her 


143 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 
loyally in her difficult, sometimes perilous, task, 
also made of the feast a holiday. 

But now, on this St. Catherine’s Eve, Mrs. 
Nagle told herself that she was at the end of 
her strength. And yet only a month ago — so 
she now reminded herself piteously — all had 
been well with her ; she had been strangely, 
pathetically happy a month since ; content 
with all the conditions of her singular and 
unnatural life. . . . 

Suddenly she stopped walking. As if in 
answer to a word spoken by an invisible com- 
panion she turned aside, and, stooping, picked 
a weed growing by the path. She held it up 
for a moment to her cheek, and then spoke 
aloud. ‘‘Were it not for James Mottram,”she 
said slowly, and very clearly, “I, too, should 
become mad.” 

Then she looked round in sudden fear. 
Catherine Nagle had never before uttered, or 
permitted another to utter aloud in her presence, 
that awful word. But she knew that their 
neighbours were not so scrupulous. One 
cruel enemy, and, what was especially un- 
toward, a close relation, Mrs. Felwake, own 
sister to Charles Nagle’s dead father, often 
uttered it. This lady desired her son to reign 
at Edgecombe ; it was she who in the last few 
years had spread abroad the notion that 


144 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Charles Nagle, in the public interest, should 
be asylumed. 

In his own house, and among his own 
tenants, the slander was angrily denied. When 
Charles was stranger, more suspicious, moodier 
than usual, those about him would tell one 
another that ‘‘the squire was ill to-day,” or 
that “the master was ailing.” That he had a 
mysterious illness was admitted. Had not a 
famous London doctor persuaded Mr. Nagle 
that it would be dangerous for him to ride, 
even to walk outside the boundary of his small 
estate, — in brief, to run any risks which might 
affect his heart? He had now got out of the 
way of wishing to go far afield ; contentedly he 
would pace up and down for hours on the 
long terrace which overhung the wood — talk- 
ing, talking, talking, with Catherine on his 
arm. 

But he was unselfish — sometimes. “Take a 
walk, dear heart, with James,” he would say, 
and then Catherine Nagle and James Mottram 
would go out and make their way to some lonely 
farmhouse or cottage where Mottram had 
estate business. Yet during these expeditions 
they never forgot Charles, so Catherine now 
reminded herself sorely, — nay, it was then 
that they talked of him the most, discussing 
him kindly, tenderly, as they went. . . . 


145 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

Catherine walked quickly on, her eyes on the 
ground. With a feeling of oppressed pain she 
recalled the last time she and Mottram had 
been alone together. Bound for a distant spot 
on the coast, they had gone on and on for 
miles, almost up to the cliffs below which lay 
the sea. Ah, how happy, how innocent she 
had felt that day ! 

Then they had come to a stile — Mottram had 
helped her up, helped her down, and for a 
moment her hand had lain and fluttered in his 

hand. . . . 

During the long walk back, each had been 
very silent ; and Catherine — she could not 
answer for her companion — when she had seen 
Charles waiting for her patiently, had felt a 
pained, shamed beat of the heart. As for 
James Mottram, he had gone home at once, 
scarce waiting for good-nights. 

That evening — Catherine remembered it now 
with a certain comfort— she had been very kind 
to Charles ; she was ever kind, but she had 
then been kinder than usual, and he had re- 
sponded by becoming suddenly clearer in mind 
than she had known him to be for a long time. 
For some days he had been the old Charles — 
tender, whimsical, gallant, the Charles with 
whom, at a time when every girl is in love with 
love, she had alack ! fallen in love. Then 


10 


146 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

once more the cloud had come down, shadow- 
ing- a dreary waste of days — dark days of 
oppression and of silence, alternating with 
sudden bursts of unreasonable and unreasoning 
rage. 

James Mottram had come, and come fre- 
quently, during that time of misery. But his 
manner had changed. He had become re- 
strained, as if watchful of himself ; he was no 
longer the free, the happy, the lively com- 
panion he had used to be. Catherine scarcely 
saw him out of Charles’s presence, and when 
they were by chance alone they talked of 
Charles, only of Charles and of his unhappy 
condition, and of what could be done to 
better it. 

And now James Mottram had given up 
coming to Edgecombe in the old familiar way ; 
or rather — and this galled Catherine shrewdly 
— he came only sufficiently often not to rouse 
remark among their servants and humble neigh- 
bours. 

Catherine Nagle was on the edge of the 
wood, and looking about her she saw with 
surprise that the railway men she had come 
down to see had finished work for the day. 
There were signs of their immediate occupa- 
tion, a fire was still smouldering, and the door 


147 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

of one of the shanties they occupied was open. 
But complete stillness reigned in this kingdom 
of high trees. To the right and left, as far as 
she could see, stretched the twin lines of rude 
iron rails laid down along what had been a 
cart-track, as well as a short cut between Edge- 
combe Manor and Eype Castle. A dun drift, 
to-day’s harvest of dead leaves, had settled on 
the rails ; even now it was difficult to follow 
their course. 

As she stood there, about to turn and re- 
trace her steps, Catherine suddenly saw James 
Mottram advancing quickly towards her, 
and the mingled revolt and sadness which 
had so wholly possessed her gave way to a 
sudden, overwhelming feeling of security and 

joy- 

She moved from behind the little hut near 
which she had been standing, and a moment 
later they stood face to face. 

James Mottram was as unlike Charles Nagle 
as two men of the same age, of the same breed, 
and of the same breeding could well be. He 
was shorter, and of sturdier build, than his 
cousin ; and he was plain, whereas Charles 
Nagle was strikingly handsome. Also his face 
was tanned by constant exposure to sun, salt- 
wind, and rain ; his hair was cut short, his face 
shaven. 


148 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

The very clothes James Mottram wore were 
in almost ludicrous contrast to those which 
Charles Nagle affected, for Mottram’s were 
always of serviceable homespun. But for the 
fact that they and he were scrupulously clean, 
the man now walking by Catherine Nagle’s 
side might have been a prosperous farmer or 
bailiff instead of the owner of such large pro- 
perty in those parts as made him, in spite of 
his unpopular faith, lord of the little world 
about him. 

On his plain face and strong, sturdy 
figure Catherine’s beautiful eyes dwelt with 
unconscious relief. She was so weary of 
Charles’s absorption in his apparel, and of his 
interest in the hundred and one fal-lals which 
then delighted the cosmopolitan men of 
fashion. 

A simple, almost childish gladness filled her 
heart. Conscience, but just now so insistent 
and disturbing a familiar, vanished for a space, 
nay more, assumed the garb of a meddling 
busybody who seeks to discover harm where 
no harm is. 

Was not James Mottram Charles’s friend, 
almost, as the old priest had said, Charles’s 
brother? Had she not herself deliberately 
chosen Charles in place of James when both 
young men had been in ardent pursuit of her 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


149 


— James’s pursuit almost wordless, Charles’s 
conducted with all the eloquence of the poet 
he had then set out to be ? 

Mottram, seeing her in the wood, uttered a 
word of surprise. She explained her presence 
there. Their hands scarce touched in greet- 
ing, and then they started walking side by side 
up the field path. 

Mottram carried a stout ash stick. Had the 
priest been there he would perchance have 
noticed that the man’s hand twitched and 
moved restlessly as he swung his stick about ; 
but Catherine only became aware that her com- 
panion was preoccupied and uneasy after they 
had gone some way. 

When, however, the fact of his unease 
seemed forced upon her notice, she felt 
suddenly angered. There was a quality in 
Mrs. Nagle that made her ever ready to 
rise to meet and conquer circumstance. 
She told herself, with heightened colour, that 
James Mottram should and must return to 
his old ways — to his old familiar footing with 
her. Anything else would be, nay was, 
intolerable. 

‘‘James,” — she turned to him frankly — 
“why have you not come over to see us 
lately as often as you did ? Charles misses 
you sadly, and so do I. Prepare to find him 


150 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
in a bad mood to-day. But just now he dis- 
tressed Mr. Dorriforth by his unreasonableness 
touching the railroad.” She smiled and went 
on lightly, “ He said that you were a false 
friend to him — a traitor ! ” 

And then Catherine Nagle stopped and 
caught her breath. God ! Why had she 
said that? But Mottram had evidently not 
caught the sinister word, and Catherine in 
haste drove back conscience into the lair 
whence conscience had leapt so suddenly to 
her side. 

Maybe I ought, in this matter of the rail- 
road,” he said musingly, ‘‘to have humoured 
Charles. I am now sorry I did not do so. 
After all, Charles may be right — and all we 
others wrong. The railroad may not bring us 
lasting good ! ” 

Catherine looked at him surprised. James 
Mottram had always been so sure of himself in 
this matter ; but now there was dejection, weari- 
ness in his voice ; and he was walking quickly, 
more quickly up the steep incline than Mrs. 
Nagle found agreeable. But she also hastened 
her steps, telling herself, with wondering pain, 
that he was evidently in no mood for her com- 
pany. 

“ Mr. Dorriforth has already been here two 
days,” she observed irrelevantly. 


151 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

‘‘Aye, I know that. It was to see him I 
came to-day ; and I will ask you to spare him 
to me for two or three hours. Indeed, I pro- 
pose that he should walk back with me to the 
Eype. I wish him to witness my new will. 
And then I may as well go to confession, for it 
is well to be shriven before a journey, though 
for my part I feel ever safer on sea than 
land ! ” 

Mottram looked straight before him as he 
spoke. 

“A journey?” Catherine repeated the 
words in a low, questioning tone. There had 
come across her heart a feeling of such anguish 
that it was as though her body instead of her 
soul were being wrenched asunder. In her 
extremity she called on pride — and pride, 
ever woman’s most loyal friend, flew to her 
aid. 

“Yes,” he repeated, still staring straight in 
front of him, leave to-morrow for Ply- 
mouth. I have had letters from my agent in 
Jamaica which make it desirable that I should 
return there without delay.” He dug his stick 
into the soft earth as he spoke. 

James Mottram was absorbed in himself, in 
his own desire to carry himself well in his 
fierce determination to avoid betraying what 
he believed to be his secret. But Catherine 


152 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
Nagle knew nothing of this. She almost 
thought him indifferent. 

They had come to a steep part of the in- 
cline, and Catherine suddenly quickened her 
steps and passed him, so making it impos- 
sible that he could see her face. She tried 
to speak, but the commonplace words she de- 
sired to say were strangled, at birth, in her 
throat. 

“ Charles will not mind ; he will not miss me 
as he would have missed me before this un- 
happy business of the railroad came between 
us,” Mottram said lamely. 

She still made no answer ; instead she shook 
her head with an impatient gesture. Her 
silence made him sorry. After all, he had 
been a good friend to Catherine Nagle — so 
much he could tell himself without shame. 
He stepped aside on to the grass, and striding 
forward turned round and faced her. 

The tears were rolling down her cheeks ; 
but she threw back her head and met his gaze 
with a cold, almost a defiant look. “You 
startled me greatly,” she said breathlessly, 
“and took me so by surprise, James! I am 
grieved to think how Charles — nay, how we 
shall both — miss you. It is of Charles I think, 
James ; it is for Charles I weep ” 

As she uttered the lying words, she still 


153 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

looked proudly into his face as if daring him 
to doubt her. ‘‘But I shall never forget — I 
shall ever think with gratitude of your great 
goodness to my poor Charles. Two years 
out of your life — that’s what it’s been, James. 
Too much — too much by far ! ” She had 
regained control over her quivering heart, 
and it was with a wan smile that she 
added, “But we shall miss you, dear, kind 
friend.” 

Her smile stung him. “Catherine,” he 
said sternly, “ I go because I must — because 
I dare not stay. You are a woman and a 
saint, I a man and a sinner. I’ve been a 
fool and worse than a fool. You say that 
Charles to-day called me false friend, traitor! 
Catherine — Charles spoke more truly than he 
knew.” 

His burning eyes held her fascinated. The 
tears had dried on her cheeks. She was 
thirstily absorbing the words as they fell now 
slowly, now quickly, from his lips. 

But what was this he was saying? ‘ ‘ Catherine, 
do you wish me to go on?” Oh, cruel! Cruel 
to put this further weight on her conscience! 
But she made a scarcely perceptible movement 
of assent — and again he spoke. 

“Years ago I thought I loved you. I went 
away, as you know well, because of that love. 


154 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
You had chosen Charles — Charles in many 
ways the better fellow of the two. I went 
away thinking myself sick with love of you, 
but it was false — only my pride had been hurt. 
I did not love you as I loved myself. And 
when I got clear away, in a new place, among 
new people” — he hesitated and reddened darkly 
— ‘‘I forgot you! I vow that when I came 
back I was cured — cured if ever a man was ! 
It was of Charles, not of you, Catherine, that 
I thought on my way home. To me Charles 
and you had become one. I swear it I ” He 
repeated: ‘‘To me you and Charles were 
one.” 

He waited a long moment, and then, more 
slowly, he went on, as if pleading with him- 
self — with her : “You know what I found here 
in place of what I had left? I found Charles 
a ” 

Catherine Nagle shrank back. She put up 
her right hand to ward off the word, and 
Mottram, seizing her hand, held it in his with 
a convulsive clasp. “’Twas not the old 
feeling that came back to me — that I again 
swear, Catherine. ’Twas something different 
— something infinitely stronger — something 
that at first I believed to be all noble ” 

He stopped speaking, and Catherine Nagle 
uttered one word— a curious word. “When ? ” 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


155 


she asked, and more urgently again she whis- 
pered, ‘‘When?” 

“Long before I knew!” he said hoarsely. 
“At first I called the passion that possessed 
me by the false name of ‘friendship.’ But 
that poor hypocrisy soon left me ! A month 
ago, Catherine, I found myself wishing — I’ll 
say this for myself, it was for the first time — 
that Charles was dead. And then I knew for 
sure what I had already long suspected — that 
the time had come for me to go ” 

He dropped her hand, and stood before 
her, abased in his own eyes, but one who, 
if a criminal, had had the strength to be his 
own judge and pass heavy sentence on him- 
self. 

“And now, Catherine — now that you under- 
stand why I go, you will bid me God-speed. 
Nay, more” — he looked at her, and smiled 
wryly — “if you are kind, as I know you 
to be kind, you will pray for me, for I go 
from you a melancholy, as well as a foolish 
man.” 

She smiled a strange little wavering smile, 
and Mottram was deeply moved by the gentle- 
ness with which Catherine Nagle had listened 
to his story. He had been prepared for an 
averted glance, for words of cold rebuke — such 
words as his own long-dead mother would 


156 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

surely have uttered to a man who had come 
to her with such a tale. 

They walked on for a while, and Catherine 
again broke the silence by a question which 
disturbed her companion. ‘‘Then your agent’s 
letter was not really urgent, James?” 

“The letters of an honest agent always call 
for the owner,” he muttered evasively. 

They reached the orchard gate. Catherine 
held the key in her hand, but she did not 
place it in the lock — instead she paused 
awhile. “Then there is no special urgency?” 
she repeated. “And James — forgive me for 
asking it — are you, indeed, leaving England 
because of this — this matter of which you have 
just told me? ” 

He bent his head in answer. 

Then she said deliberately: “Your con- 
science, James, is too scrupulous. I do not 
think that there is any reason why you should 
not stay. When Charles and 1 were in Italy,” 
she went on in a toneless, monotonous voice, 
“ I met some of those young noblemen who in 
times of pestilence go disguised to nurse the 
sick and bury the dead. It is that work of 
charity, dear friend, which you have been per- 
forming in our unhappy house. You have 
been nursing the sick — nay, more, you have 


157 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

been tending” — she waited, then in a low 
voice she added — ‘‘the dead — the dead that 
are yet alive.” 

Mottrams soul leapt into his eyes. “Then 
you bid me stay ? ” he asked. 

“For the present,” she answered, “I beg 
you to stay. But only so if it is indeed true 
that your presence is not really required in 
Jamaica.” 

“I swear, Catherine, that all goes suffi- 
ciently well there.” Again he fixed his honest, 
ardent eyes on her face. 

And now James Mottram was filled with 
a great exultation of spirit. He felt that 
Catherine’s soul, incapable of even the thought 
of evil, shamed and made unreal the tempta- 
tion which had seemed till just now one 
which could only be resisted by flight. 
Catherine was right ; he had been over 
scrupulous. 

There was proof of it in the blessed fact that 
even now, already, the poison which had 
seemed to possess him, that terrible longing for 
another man’s wife, had left him, vanishing in 
that same wife’s pure presence. It was when he 
was alone — alone in his great house on the 
hill, that the devil entered into him, whispering 
that it was an awful thing such a woman as 
was Catherine, sensitive, intelligent, and in 


158 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
her beauty so appealing, should be tied to 
such a being as was Charles Nagle — poor 
Charles, whom every one, excepting his wife 
and one loyal kinsman, called mad. And 
yet now it was for this very Charles that 
Catherine asked him to stay, for the sake of 
that unhappy, distraught man to whom he, 
James Mottram, recognized the duty of a 
brother. 

‘‘We will both forget what you have just 
told me,’' she said gently, and he bowed his 
head in reverence. 

They were now on the last step of the stone 
stairway leading to the terrace. 

Mrs. Nagle turned to her companion ; he 
saw that her eyes were very bright, and that 
the rose-red colour in her cheeks had deepened 
as if she had been standing before a great fire. 

As they came within sight of Charles Nagle 
and of the old priest, Catherine put out her 
hand. She touched Mottram on the arm — it 
was a fleeting touch, but it brought them both, 
with beating hearts, to a stand. “James,” 
she said, and then she stopped for a moment 
— a moment that seemed to contain aeons of 
mingled rapture and pain — “one word about 
Mr. Dorriforth.” The commonplace words 
dropped them back to earth. “ Did you wish 
him to stay with you till to-morrow ? That 


159 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

will scarcely be possible, for to-morrow is 
St. Catherines Day.” 

‘‘Why, no,” he said quickly. “I will not 
take him home with me to-night. All my 
plans are now changed. My will can wait ” — 
he smiled at her — “and so can my confes- 
sion.” 

“No, no!” she cried almost violently. 
“Your confession must not wait, James ” 

“Aye, but it must,” he said, and again he 
smiled. “I am in no mood for confession, 
Catherine.” He added in a lower tone, “you’ve 
purged me of my sin, my dear — I feel already 
shriven.” 

Shame of a very poignant quality suddenly 
seared Catherine Nagle’s soul. “Go on, you,” 
she said breathlessly, though to his ears she 
seemed to speak in her usual controlled and 
quiet tones, “I have some orders to give in 
the house. Join Charles and Mr. Dorriforth. 
I will come out presently.” 

James Mottram obeyed her. He walked 
quickly forward. “Good news, Charles,” he 
cried. “These railway men whose presence 
so offends you go for good to-morrow ! Rever- 
end sir, accept my hearty greeting.” 

Catherine Nagle turned to the right and 
went into the house. She hastened through 


160 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
the rooms In which, year in and year out, she 
spent her life, with Charles as her perpetual, 
her insistent companion. She now longed for 
a time of recollection and secret communion, 
and so she instinctively made for the one place 
where no one, not even Charles, would come 
and disturb her. 

Walking across the square hall, she ran up 
the broad staircase leading to the gallery, out 
of which opened the doors of her bedroom and 
of her husband’s dressing-room. But she went 
swiftly past these two closed doors, and made 
her way along a short passage which terminated 
abruptly with a faded red baize door giving 
access to the chapel. 

Long, low - ceilinged and windowless, the 
chapel of Edgecombe Manor had remained 
unaltered since the time when there were heavy 
penalties attached both to the celebration of 
the sacred rites and to the hearing of Mass. 
The chapel depended for what fresh air it had 
on a narrow door opening straight on to ladder- 
like stairs leading down directly and out on to 
the terrace below. It was by this way that 
the small and scattered congregation gained 
access to the chapel when the presence of a 
priest permitted of Mass being celebrated 
there. 

Catherine went up close to the altar rails. 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


161 


and sat down on the arm-chair placed there 
for her sole use. She felt that now, when 
about to wrestle with her soul, she could not 
kneel and pray. Since she had been last in 
the chapel, acting sacristan that same morning, 
life had taken a great stride forward, dragging 
her along in its triumphant wake, a criiel and 
yet a magnificent conqueror. 

Hiding her face in her hands, she lived again 
each agonized and exquisite moment she had 
lived through as there had fallen on her ears 
the words of James Mottram’s shamed con- 
fession. Once more her heart was moved to 
an exultant sense of happiness that he should 
have said these things to her — of happiness 
and shrinking shame. . . . 

But soon other thoughts, other and sterner 
memories were thrust upon her. She told her- 
self the bitter truth. Not only had she led 
James Mottram into temptation, but she had 
put all her woman’s wit to the task of keep- 
ing him there. It was her woman’s wit — but 
Catherine Nagle called it by a harsher name — 
which had enabled her to make that perilous 
rock on which she and James Mottram now 
stood heart to heart together, appear, to him 
at least, a spot of sanctity and safety. It was 
she, not the man who had gazed at her with 
so ardent a belief in her purity and honour, 

II 


162 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

who was playing traitor — and traitor to one at 
once confiding and defenceless. . . . 

Then, strangely, this evocation of Charles 
brought her burdened conscience relief. Cathe- 
rine found sudden comfort in remembering her 
care, her tenderness for Charles. She re- 
minded herself fiercely that never had she 
allowed anything to interfere with her wifely 
duty. Never? Alas! she remembered that 
there had come a day, at a time when James 
Mottram’s sudden defection had filled her heart 
with pain, when she had been unkind to 
Charles. She recalled his look of bewildered 
surprise, and how he, poor fellow, had tried 
to sulk — only a few hours later to come to her, 
as might have done a repentant child, with the 
words, ‘‘Have I offended you, dear love?’’ 
And she who now avoided his caresses had 
kissed him of her own accord with tears, and 
cried, “No, no, Charles, you never offend me 
— you are always good to me ! ” 

There had been a moment to-day, just before 
she had taunted James Mottram with being over- 
scrupulous, when she had told herself that she 
could be loyal to both of these men she loved 
and who loved her, giving to each a different 
part of her heart. 

But that bargain with conscience had never 
been struck ; while considering it she had 


163 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 
found herself longing for some convulsion of 
the earth which should throw her and Mottram 
in each other’s arms. 

James Mottram traitor? That was what she 
was about to make him be. Catherine forced 
herself to face the remorse, the horror, the 
loathing of himself which would ensue. 

It was for Mottram’s sake, far more than in 
response to the command laid on her by her 
own soul, that Catherine Nagle finally de- 
termined on the act of renunciation which she 
knew was being immediately required of her. 

When Mrs. Nagle came out on the terrace 
the three men rose ceremoniously. She glanced 
at Charles, even now her first thought and her 
first care. His handsome face was overcast 
with the look of gloomy preoccupation which 
she had learnt to fear, though she knew that 
in truth it signified but little. At James Mot- 
tram she did not look, for she wished to hus- 
band her strength for what she was about 
to do. 

Making a sign to the others to sit down, she 
herself remained standing behind Charles’s 
chair. It was from there that she at last 
spoke, instinctively addressing her words to 
the old priest. 

‘‘I wonder,” she said, ‘Hf James has told 


164 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
you of his approaching departure? He has 
heard from his agent in Jamaica that his 
presence is urgently required there.” 

Charles Nagle looked up eagerly. ‘‘This 
is news indeed!” he exclaimed. “Lucky 
fellow ! Why, you’ll escape all the trouble 
that you’ve put on us with regard to that 
puffing devil ! ” He spoke more cordially than 
he had done for a long time to his cousin. 

Mr. Dorriforth glanced for a moment up at 
Catherine’s face. Then quickly he averted his 
eyes. 

James Mottram rose to his feet. His limbs 
seemed to have aged. He gave Catherine a 
long, probing look. 

“ Forgive me,” he said deliberately. “ You 
mistook my meaning. The matter is not as 
urgent, Catherine, as you thought.” He turned 
to Charles, “ I will not desert my friends — at 
any rate not for the present. I’ll face the 
puffing devil with those to whom I have helped 
to acquaint him ! ” 

But Mrs. Nagle and the priest both knew 
that the brave words were a vain boast. Charles 
alone was deceived ; and he showed no pleasure 
in the thought that the man who had been to 
him so kind and so patient a comrade and 
so trusty a friend was after all not leaving 
England immediately. 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


165 


“ I must be going back to the Eype now.'* 
Mottram spoke heavily ; again he looked at 
Mrs. Nagle with a strangely probing, pleading 
look. ‘‘But ril come over to-morrow morn- 
ing — to Mass. I've not forgotten that to- 
morrow is St. Catherine’s Day — that this is 
St. Catherine’s Eve.” 

Charles seemed to wake out of a deep ab- 
straction. “Yes, yes,” he said heartily. “To- 
morrow is the great day ! And then, after 
we’ve had breakfast I shall be able to consult 
you, James, about a very important matter, 
that new well they’re plaguing me to sink in 
the village.” 

For the moment the cloud had again lifted ; 
Nagle looked at his cousin with all his old con- 
fidence and affection, and in response James 
Mottram ’s face worked with sudden emotion. 

“I’ll be quite at your service, Charles,” he 
said, “quite at your service ! ” 

Catherine stood by. “ I will let you out by 
the orchard gate,” she said. “No need for 
you to go round by the road.” 

They walked, silently, side by side, along 
the terrace and down the stone steps. When 
in the leafless orchard, and close to where they 
were to part, he spoke : 

“You bid me go — at once?” Mottram 
asked the question in a low, even tone ; but 


166 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
he did not look at Catherine, instead his eyes 
seemed to be following the movements of the 
stick he was digging into the ground at their 
feet. 

‘‘ I think, James, that would be best.” Even 
to herself the words Mrs. Nagle uttered sounded 
very cold. 

“ Best for me ? ” he asked. Then he looked 
up, and with sudden passion, ‘‘Catherine!” 
he cried. “Believe me, I know that I can 
stay ! Forget the wild and foolish things I 
said. No thought of mine shall wrong Charles 
— I swear it solemnly. Catherine ! — do not 
bid me leave you. Cannot you trust my 
honour?” His eyes held hers, by turns they 
seemed to become beseeching and imperious. 

Catherine Nagle suddenly threw out her 
hands with a piteous gesture. “Ah ! James,” 

she said, “I cannot trust my own ” And 

as she thus made surrender of her two most 
cherished possessions, her pride and her 
womanly reticence, Mottram’s face — the plain- 
featured face so exquisitely dear to her — be- 
came transfigured. He said no word, he made 
no step forward, and yet Catherine felt as if 
the whole of his being was calling her, drawing 
her to him. . . . 

Suddenly there rang through the still air a 
discordant cry : “ Catherine ! Catherine ! ” 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


167 


Mrs. Nagle sighed, a long convulsive sigh. 
It was as though a deep pit had opened be- 
tween herself and her companion. “That was 
Charles,” she whispered, “poor Charles call- 
ing me. I must not keep him waiting.” 

“God forgive me,” Mottram said huskily, 
“and bless you, Catherine, for all your good- 
ness to me.” He took her hand in farewell, 
and she felt the firm, kind grasp to be that 
of the kinsman and friend, not that of the 
lover. 

Then came over her a sense of measureless 
and most woeful loss. She realized for the 
first time all that his going away would mean to 
her — of all that it would leave her bereft. He had 
been the one human being to whom she had 
been able to bring herself to speak freely. 
Charles had been their common charge, the 
link as well as the barrier between them. 

“You’ll come to-morrow morning?” she 
said, and she tried to withdraw her hand from 
his. His impersonal touch hurt her. 

“ I’ll come to-morrow, and rather early, 
Catherine. Then I’ll be able to confess before 
Mass.” He was speaking in his usual voice, 
but he still held her hand, and she felt 
his grip on it tightening, bringing welcome 
hurt. 


“ And you’ll leave ? 


168 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
‘‘ For Plymouth to-morrow afternoon,” he 
said briefly. He dropped her hand, which 
now felt numbed and maimed, and passed 
through the gate without looking back. 

She stood a moment watching him as he 
strode down the field path. It had suddenly 
become, from day, night, — high time for 
Charles to be indoors. 

Forgetting to lock the gate, she turned and 
retraced her steps through the orchard, and so 
made her way up to where her husband and 
the old priest were standing awaiting her. 

As she approached them, she became aware 
that something going on in the valley 
below was absorbing their close attention. 
She felt glad that this was so. 

‘‘There it is ! ” cried Charles Nagle angrily. 
“ I told you that they’d begin their damned 
practice again to-night ! ” 

Slowly through the stretch of open country 
which lay spread to their right, the Bridport 
Wonder went puffing its way. Lanterns had 
been hung in front of the engine, and as it 
crawled sinuously along it looked like some 
huge monster with myriad eyes. As it entered 
the wood below, the dark barrel-like body of 
the engine seemed to give a bound, a lurch for- 
ward, and the men that manned it laughed 
out suddenly and loudly. The sound of their 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 169 

uncouth mirth floated upwards through the 
twilight. 

‘‘James's ale has made them merry!" ex- 
claimed Charles, wagging his head. “And 
he, going through the wood, will just have 
met the puffing devil. I wish him the joy of 
the meeting ! " 


II 

It was five hours later. Mrs. Nagle had 
bidden her reverend guest good night, and she 
was now moving about her large, barely 
furnished bedchamber, waiting for her husband 
to come upstairs. 

The hours which had followed James 
Mottram’s departure had seemed intolerably 
long. Catherine felt as if she had gone 
through some terrible physical exertion which 
had left her worn out — stupefied. And yet she 
could not rest. Even now her day was not 
over ; Charles often grew restless and talkative 
at night. He and Mr. Dorriforth were no doubt 
still sitting talking together downstairs. 

Mrs. Nagle could hear her husband’s valet 
moving about in the next room, and the 
servant’s proximity disturbed her. 

She waited awhile and then went and opened 


170 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

the door of the dressing-room. ‘‘You need 
not sit up, Collins,” she said. 

The man looked vaguely disturbed. ‘‘ I 
fear that Mr. Nagle, madam, has gone out of 
doors,” he said. 

Catherine felt dismayed. The winter before 
Charles had once stayed out nearly all night. 

“Go you to bed, Collins,” she said. “I 
will wait up till Mr. Nagle comes in, and I will 
make it right with him.” 

He looked at her doubtingly. Was it possible 
that Mrs. Nagle was unaware of how much 
worse than usual his master had been the last 
few days ? 

“ I fear Mr. Nagle is not well to-day,” he 
ventured. “ He seems much disturbed to- 
night.” 

“ Your master is disturbed because Mr. 
Mottram is again leaving England for the 
Indies.” Catherine forced herself to say the 
words. She was dully surprised to see how 
quietly news so momentous to her was received 
by her faithful servant. 

“ That may be it,” said the man consider- 
ingly, “but I can’t help thinking that the 
master is still much concerned about the rail- 
road. I fear that he has gone down to the 
wood to-night.” 

Catherine was startled. ‘ ‘ Oh, surely he would 


171 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 
not do that, Collins?” She added in a lower 
tone, “ I myself locked the orchard gate.” 

‘‘If that is so,” he answered, obviously re- 
lieved, “then with your leave, madam. I’ll be 
off to bed.” 

Mrs. Nagle went back into her room, and 
sat down by the fire, and then, sooner than she 
had expected to do so, she heard a familiar 
sound. It came from the chapel, for Charles 
was fond of using that strange and secret entry 
into his house. 

She got up and quietly opened her bedroom 
door. 

From the hall below was cast up the dim 
light of the oil-lamp which always burnt there 
at night, and suddenly Catherine saw her hus- 
band emerge from the chapel passage, and 
begin walking slowly round the opposite side of 
the gallery. She watched him with languid 
curiosity. 

Charles Nagle was treading softly, his head 
bent as if in thought. Suddenly he stayed his 
steps by a half-moon table on which stood a 
large Chinese bowl filled with pot-pourri ; and 
into this he plunged his hands, seeming to 
lave them in the dry rose-leaves. Catherine 
felt no surprise, she was so used to his strange 
ways ; and more than once he had hidden 
things — magpie fashion — in that great bowl. 


172 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
She turned and closed her door noiselessly ; 
Charles much disliked being spied on. 

At last she heard him go into his dressing- 
room. Then came the sounds of cupboard 
doors being flung open, and the hurried pour- 
ing out of water. . . . But long before he 
could have had time to undress, she heard the 
familiar knock. 

She said feebly, ‘‘Come in,” and the door 
opened. 

It was as she had feared ; her husband had 
no thought, no intention, of going yet to bed. 
Not only was he fully dressed, but the white 
evening waistcoat he had been wearing had 
been changed by him within the last few 
moments for a waistcoat she had not seen 
before, though she had heard of its arrival 
from London. It was of cashmere, the latest 
freak of fashion. She also saw with surprise 
that his nankeen trousers were stained, as if 
he had been kneeling on damp ground. He 
looked very hot, his wavy hair lay damply on 
his brow, and he appeared excited, oppressively 
alive. 

“Catherine ! ” he exclaimed, hurrying up to 
the place where she was standing near the fire. 
“You will bear witness that I was always and 
most positively averse to the railroad being 
brought here?” He did not wait for her to 


173 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

answer him. ‘‘ Did I not always say that trouble 
would come of it — trouble to us all ? Yet some- 
times it’s an ill thing to be proved right.” 

“ Indeed it is, Charles,” she answered 
gently. ‘‘But let us talk of this to-morrow. 
It’s time for bed, my dear, and I am very 
weary.” 

He was now standing by her, staring down 
into the fire. 

Suddenly he turned and seized her left arm. 
He brought her unresisting across the room, then 
dragged aside the heavy yellow curtains which 
had been drawn before the central window. 

“Look over there, Catherine,” he said mean- 
ingly. “Can you see the Eype? The moon 
gives but little light to-night, but the stars 
are bright. I can see a glimmer at yon 
window. They must be still waiting for James 
to come home.” 

“I see the glimmer you mean,” she said 
dully. “ No doubt they leave a lamp burn- 
ing all night, as we do. James must have 
got home hours ago, Charles.” She saw that 
the cuff of her husband’s coat was also covered 
with dark, damp stains, and again she won- 
dered uneasily what he had been doing out of 
doors. 

“Catherine?” Charles Nagle turned her 
round, ungently, and forced her to look up 


174 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

into his face. “Have you ever thought what 
’twould be like to live at the Eype?” 

The question startled her. She roused her- 
self to refute what she felt to be an unworthy 
accusation. “No, Charles,” she said, looking 
at him steadily. “God is my witness that at 
no time did I think of living at the Eype ! 

Such a wish never came to me ” 

“ Nor to me ! ” he cried, “nor to me, Cathe- 
rine ! All the long years that James Mottram 
was in Jamaica the thought never once came 
to me that he might die, and I survive him. 
After all we were much of an age, he had but 
two years the advantage of me. I always 
thought that the boy — my aunt’s son, curse 
him ! — would get it all. Then, had I thought 
of it — and I swear I never did think of it — I 
should have told myself that any day James 

might bring a wife to the Eype ” 

He was staring through the leaded panes 
with an intent, eager gaze. “ It is a fine house, 
Catherine, and commodious. Larger, airier 
than ours — though perhaps colder,” he added 
thoughtfully. “Cold I always found it in 
winter when I used to stay there as a boy — 
colder than this house. You prefer Edge- 
combe, Catherine ? If you were given a 
choice, is it here that you would live ? ” He 
looked at her, as if impatient for an answer. 


175 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

‘‘ Every stone of Edgecombe, our home, is 
dear to me,” she said solemnly. ‘‘I have 
never admired the Eype. It is too large, too 
cold for my taste. It stands too much exposed 
to the wind.” 

‘‘ It does ! it does ! ” There was a note of 
regret in his voice. He let the curtain fall and 
looked about him rather wildly. 

‘‘And now, Charles,” she said, “shall we 
not say our prayers and retire to rest.” 

“If I had only thought of it,” he said, “I 
might have said my prayers in the chapel. But 
there was much to do. I thought of calling 
you, Catherine, for you make a better sacristan 
than I. Then I remembered Boney — poor 
little Boney crushed by the miller s dray — and 
how you cried all night, and that though I 
promised you a far finer, cleverer dog than that 
poor old friend had ever been. Collins said, 

‘ Why, sir, you should have hid the old dog's 
death from the mistress till the morning ! ’ A 
worthy fellow, Collins. He meant no dis- 
respect to me. At that time, d you remember, 
Collins had only been in my service a few 
months ? ” 

It was an hour later. From where she lay 
in bed, Catherine Nagle with dry, aching eyes 
stared into the fire, watching the wood embers 


176 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

turn from red to grey. By her side, his hand 
in hers, Charles slept the dreamless, heavy 
slumber of a child. 

Scarcely breathing, in her anxiety lest he 
should wake, she loosened her hand, and 
with a quick movement slipped out of bed. 
The fire was burning low, but Catherine 
saw everything in the room very clearly, 
and she threw over her night-dress a long 
cloak, and wound about her head the scarf 
which she had worn during her walk to the 
wood. 

It was not the first time Mrs. Nagle had 
risen thus in the still night and sought refuge 
from herself and from her thoughts in the 
chapel ; and her husband had never missed 
her from his side. 

As she crept round the dimly lit gallery she 
passed by the great bowl of pot-pourri by 
which Charles Nagle had lingered, and there 
came to her the thought that it might perchance 
be well for her to discover, before the servants 
should have a chance of doing so, what he 
had doubtless hidden there. 

Catherine plunged both her hands into the 
scented rose-leaves, and she gave a sudden 
cry of pain — for her fingers had closed on the 
sharp edge of a steel blade. Then she drew 
out a narrow damascened knife, one which 


177 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

her husband, taken by its elegant shape, had 
purchased long before in Italy. 

Mrs. Nagle’s brow furrowed in vexation — 
Collins should have put the dangerous toy out 
of his master’s reach. Slipping the knife into 
the deep pocket of her cloak, she hurried on 
into the unlit passage leading to the chapel. 

Save for the hanging lamp, which since 
Mr. Dorriforth had said Mass there that 
morning signified the presence of the Blessed 
Sacrament, the chapel should have been in 
darkness. But as Catherine passed through 
the door she saw, with sudden, uneasy amaze- 
ment, the farther end of the chapel in a haze 
of brightness. 

Below the altar, striking upwards from the 
floor of the sanctuary, gleamed a corona of 
light. Charles — she could not for a moment 
doubt that it was Charles’s doing — had moved 
the six high, heavy silver candlesticks which 
always stood on either side of the altar, and had 
placed them on the ground. 

There, in a circle, the wax candles blazed, 
standing sentinel-wise about a dark, round 
object which was propped up on a pile of altar- 
linen carefully arranged to support it. 

Fear clutched at Catherine’s heart — such fear 
as even in the early days of Charles’s madness 


12 


178 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

had never clutched it. She was filled with a 
horrible dread, and a wild, incredulous dismay. 

What was the Thing, at once so familiar and 
so terribly strange, that Charles had brought 
out of the November night and placed with 
so much care below the altar ? 

But the thin flames of the candles, now 
shooting up, now guttering low, blown on by 
some invisible current of strong air, gave no 
steady light. 

Staying still close to the door, she sank down 
on her knees, and desiring to shut out, ob- 
literate, the awful sight confronting her, she 
pressed both her hands to her eyes. But that 
availed her nothing. 

Suddenly there rose up before Catherine 
Nagle a dreadful scene of that great Revolu- 
tion drama of which she had been so often told 
as a child. She saw, with terrible distinctness, 
the severed heads of men and women borne 
high on iron pikes, and one of these blood- 
streaked, livid faces was that of James 
Mottram — =the wide-open, sightless eyes, his 
eyes. . . . 

There also came back to her as she knelt 
there, shivering with cold and anguish, the 
story of a French girl of noble birth who, 
having bought her lovers head from the 
executioner, had walked with it in her arms 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


179 


to the village near Paris where stood his 
deserted chateau. 

Slowly she rose from her knees, and with 
her hands thrown out before her, she groped 
her way to the wall and there crept along, 
as if a precipice lay on her other side. 

At last she came to the narrow oak door 
which gave on to the staircase leading into the 
open air. The door was ajar ; it was from 
there that blew the current of air which caused 
those thin, fantastic flames to flare and gutter 
in the awful stillness. 

She drew the door to, and went on her way, 
so round to the altar. In the now steadier 
light Catherine saw that the large missal lay 
open at the Office for the Dead. 

She laid her hands with a blind instinct upon 
the altar, and felt a healing touch upon their 
palms. Henceforth — and Catherine Nagle was 
fated to live many long years — she remained 
persuaded that it was then there had come 
to her a shaft of divine light piercing the dark 
recesses of her soul. For it was at that moment 
that there came to her the conviction, and one 
which never faltered, that Charles Nagle had 
done no injury to James Mottram. And there 
also came to her then the swift understanding 
of what others would believe, were there to be 
found in the private chapel of Edgecombe 


180 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Manor that which now lay on the ground 
behind her, close to her feet. 

So understanding, Catherine suddenly saw 
the way open before her, and the dread thing 
which she must do if Charles were to be saved 
from a terrible suspicion — one which would un- 
doubtedly lead to his being taken away from 
her and from all that his poor, atrophied heart 
held dear, to be asylumed. 

With steps that did not falter, Catherine 
Nagle went behind the altar into the little 
sacristy, there to seek in the darkness an altar- 
cloth. 

Holding the cloth up before her face she 
went back into the lighted chapel, and kneel- 
ing down, she uncovered her face and threw 
the cloth over what lay before her. 

And then Catherine’s teeth began to chatter, 
and a mortal chill overtook her. She was 
being faced by a new and to her a most dread 
enemy, for till to-night she and that base 
physical fear which is the coward’s foe had 
never met. Pressing her hands together, she 
whispered the short, simple prayer for the 
Faithful Departed that she had said so often 
and, she now felt, so unmeaningly. Even as 
she uttered the familiar words, base Fear slunk 
away, leaving in his place her soul’s old com- 
panion, Courage, and his attendant, Peace, 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 


181 


She rose to her feet, and opening* wide her 
eyes forced herself to think out what must be 
done by her in order that no trace of Charles’s 
handiwork should remain in the chapel. 

SnufRng out the wicks, Catherine lifted the 
candlesticks from the ground and put them 
back in their accustomed place upon the 
altar. Then, stooping, she forced herself to 
wrap up closely in the altar-cloth that which 
must be her burden till she found James Mot- 
tram’s headless body where Charles had left 
it, and placing that same precious burden 
within the ample folds of her cloak, she held 
it with her left hand and arm closely pressed 
to her bosom. . . . 

With her right hand she gathered up the 
pile of stained altar-linen from the ground, 
and going once more into the sacristy she 
thrust it into the oak chest in which were kept 
the Lenten furnishings of the altar. Having 
done that, and walking slowly lest she should 
trip and fall, she made her way to the narrow 
door Charles had left open to the air, and 
going down the steep stairway was soon out 
of doors in the dark and windy night. 

Charles had been right, the moon gave but 
little light ; enough, however, so she told her- 
self, for the accomplishment of her task. 

She sped swiftly along the terrace, keeping 


182 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

close under the house, and then more slowly 
walked down the stone steps where last time 
she trod them Mottram had been her com- 
panion, his living lips as silent as were his 
dead lips now. 

The orchard gate was wide open, and as 
she passed through there came to Catherine 
Nagle the knowledge why Charles on his way 
back from the wood had not even latched it ; 
he also, when passing through it, had been 
bearing a burden. . . . 

She walked down the field path ; and when 
she came to the steep place where Mottram 
had told her that he was going away, the 
tears for the first time began running down 
Catherine’s face. She felt again the sharp, 
poignant pain which his then cold and measured 
words had dealt her, and the blow this time 
fell on a bruised heart. With a convulsive 
gesture she pressed more closely that which 
she was holding to her desolate breast. 

At night the woodland is strangely, curiously 
alive. Catherine shuddered as she heard the 
stuffiess sounds, the tiny rustlings and burrow- 
ings of those wild, shy creatures whose solitude 
had lately been so rudely invaded, and who 
now of man’s night made their day. Their 
myriad presence made her human loneliness 
more intense than it had been in the open 


183 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 
fields, and as she started walking by the side 
of the iron rails, her eyes fixed on the dark 
drift of dead leaves which dimly marked the 
path, she felt solitary indeed, and beset with 
vague and fearsome terrors. 

At last she found herself nearing the end of 
the wood. Soon would come the place where 
what remained of the cart-track struck sharply 
to the left, up the hill towards the Eype. 

It was there, close to the open, that Catherine 
Nagle’s quest ended ; and that she was able to 
accomplish the task she had set herself, of 
making that which Charles had rendered in- 
complete, complete as men, considering the 
flesh, count completeness. 

Within but a few yards of safety, James 
Mottram had met with death ; a swift, merciful 
death, due to the negligence of an engine- 
driver not only new to his work but made 
blindly merry by Mottram’s gift of ale. 

Charles Nagle woke late on the morning of 
St. Catherine’s Day, and the pale November 
sun fell on the fully dressed figures of his wife 
and Mr. Dorriforth standing by his bedside. 

But Charles, absorbed as always in himself, 
saw nothing untoward in their presence. 

‘‘I had a dream!” he exclaimed. ‘‘A 
most horrible and gory dream this night ! I 


184 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
thought I was in the wood ; James Mottram 
lay before me, done to death by that puffing 
devil we saw slithering by so fast. His head 
nearly severed — a la guillotine^ you under- 
stand, my love? — from his poor body ” 

There was a curious, secretive smile on Charles 
Nagle’s pale, handsome face. 

Catherine Nagle gave a cry, a stifled shriek 
of horror. 

The priest caught her by the arm and led 
her to the couch which stood across the end 
of the bed. 

‘‘Charles,” he said sternly, “this is no 
light matter. Your dream — there’s not a doubt 
of it — was sent you in merciful preparation for 
the awful truth. Your kinsman, your almost 
brother, Charles, was found this morning in 
the wood, dead as you saw him in your dream.” 

The face of the man sitting up in bed 
stiffened — was it with fear or grief? “They 
found James Mottram dead?” he repeated 
with an uneasy glance in the direction of the 
couch where crouched his wife. “And his 
head, most reverend sir — what of his head ? ” 

“James Mottram ’s body was terribly 
mangled. But his head,” answered the priest 
solemnly, “ was severed from his body, as you 
saw it in your dream, Charles. A strangely 
clean cut, it seems ” 


185 


ST. CATHERINE’S EVE 

‘‘Ay,” said Charles Nagle. “That was in 
my dream too ; if I said nearly severed, I said 
wrong.” 

Catherine was now again standing by the 
priest’s side. 

“Charles,” she said gravely, “you must 
now get up ; Mr. Dorriforth is only waiting 
for you, to say Mass for James’s soul.” 

She made the sign of the cross, and then, 
with her right hand shading her sunken eyes, 
she went on, “My dear, I entreat you to tell 
no one — not even faithful Collins — of this awful 
dream. We want no such tale spread about 
the place ” 

She looked at the old priest entreatingly, 
and he at once responded. “ Catherine is 
right, Charles. We of the Faith should be 
more careful with regard to such matters than 
are the ignorant and superstitious.” 

But he was surprised to hear the woman by 
his side say insistently, “Charles, if only to 
please me, vow that you will keep most secret 
this dreadful dream. I fear that if it should 
come to your Aunt Felwake’s ears ” 

“That I swear it shall not,” said Charles 
sullenly. 

And he kept his word. 




THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 









THE WOMAN FROM 
PURGATORY 


. not dead, this friend — not dead, 

But, in the path we mortals tread. 

Got some few, little steps ahead 
And nearer to the end. 

So that you, too, once past the bend, 

Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend 
You fancy dead.” 


I 

M rs. barlow, the prettiest and the 
happiest and the best dressed of the 
young wives of Summerfield, was walking to- 
ward the Catholic Church. She was going to 
consult the old priest as to her duty to an un- 
satisfactory servant ; for Agnes Barlow was a 
conscientious as well as a pretty and a happy 
woman. 

Foolish people are fond of quoting a foolish 
gibe : ‘‘Be good, and you may be happy ; but 
you will not have a good time.” The wise, 
however, soon become aware that if, in the 
course of life’s journey, you achieve goodness 
189 


190 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


and happiness, you will almost certainly have 
a good time too. 

So, at least, Agnes Barlow had found in her 
own short life. Her excellent parents had built 
one of the first new houses in what had then 
been the pretty, old-fashioned village of Summer- 
field, some fifteen miles from London. There 
she had been born ; there she had spent delight- 
ful years at the big convent school over the hill ; 
there she had grown up into a singularly pretty 
girl ; and there, finally — it had seemed quite 
final to Agnes — she had met the clever, fasci- 
nating young lawyer, Frank Barlow. 

Frank had soon become the lover all her girl 
friends had envied her, and then the husband 
who was still — so he was fond of saying and of 
proving in a dozen dear little daily ways — as 
much in love with her as on the day they 
were married. They lived in a charming 
house called The Haven, and they were the 
proud parents of a fine little boy, named 
Francis after his father, who never had any 
of the tiresome ailments which afflict other 
people’s children. 

But strange, dreadful things do happen — not 
often, of course, but just now and again — even 
in this delightful world ! So thought Agnes 
Barlow on this pleasant May afternoon ; for, 
as she walked to church, this pretty, happy. 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 191 

good woman found her thoughts dwelling un- 
comfortably on another woman, her sometime 
intimate friend and contemporary, who was 
neither good nor happy. 

This was Teresa Maldo, the lovely half- 
Spanish girl who had been her favourite school- 
mate at the convent over the hill. 

Poor, foolish, unhappy, wicked Teresa ! Only 
ten days ago Teresa had done a thing so extra- 
ordinary, so awful, so unprecedented, that Agnes 
Barlow had thought of little else ever since. 
Teresa Maldo had eloped, gone right away 
from her home and her husband, and with a 
married man ! 

Teresa and Agnes were the same age ; they 
had had the same upbringing ; they were both 
— in a very different way, however — beautiful, 
and they had each been married, six years be- 
fore, on the same day of the month. 

But how different had been their subsequent 
fates ! 

Teresa had at once discovered that her hus- 
band drank. But she loved him, and for a 
while it seemed as if marriage would reform 
Maldo. Unfortunately, this better state of 
things did not last : he again began to drink : 
and the matrons of Summerfield soon had 
reason to shake their heads over the way Teresa 
Maldo went on. 


192 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Men, you see, were so sorry for this lovely 
young woman, blessed (or cursed) with what 
old-fashioned folk call ‘‘the come-hither eye,” 
that they made it their business to console her 
for such a worthless husband as was Maldo. 
No wonder Teresa and Agnes drifted apart ; 
no wonder Frank Barlow soon forbade his spot- 
less Agnes to accept Mrs. Maldo’s invitations. 
And Agnes knew that her dear Frank was 
right ; she had never much enjoyed her visits 
to Teresa’s house. 

But an odd thing had happened about a fort- 
night ago. And it was to this odd happening 
that Agnes’s mind persistently recurred each 
time she found herself alone. 

About three days before Teresa Maldo had 
done the mad and wicked thing of which all 
Summerfield was still talking, she had paid a 
long call on Agnes Barlow. 

The unwelcome guest had stayed a very long 
time ; she had talked, as she generally did talk 
now, wildly and rather strangely ; and Agnes, 
looking back, was glad to remember that no 
one else had come in while her old schoolfellow 
was there. 

When, at last, Teresa Maldo had made up 
her mind to go (luckily, some minutes before 
Frank was due home from town), Agnes ac- 
companied her to the gate of The Haven, and 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 193 

there the other had turned round and made 
such odd remarks. 

‘‘I came to tell you something ! ” she had 
exclaimed. But, now that I see you looking 
so happy, so pretty, and — forgive me for saying 
so, Agnes — so horribly good, I feel that I can’t 
tell you ! But, Agnes, whatever happens, you 
must pity, and — and, if you can, understand 
me. 

It was now painfully clear to Agnes Barlow 
that Teresa had come that day intending to tell 
her once devoted friend of the wicked thing she 
meant to do ; and more than once pretty and 
good Mrs. Barlow had asked herself uneasily 
whether she could have done anything to stop 
Teresa on her downward course. 

But no ; Agnes felt her conscience clear. 
How would it have been possible for her even 
to discuss with Teresa so shameful a possibility 
as that of a woman leaving her husband with 
another man ? 

Agnes thought of the two sinners with a 
touch of fascinated curiosity. They were said 
to be in Paris, and Teresa was probably 
having a very good time — a wildly amusing, 
exciting time. 

She even told herself, did this pretty, happy, 
fortunate young married woman, that it was 
strange, and not very fair, that vice and plea- 
13 


194 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


sure should always go together ! It was just 
a little irritating to know that Teresa would 
never again be troubled by the kind of worries 
that played quite an important part in Agnes's 
own blameless life. Never again, for instance, 
would Teresa s cook give her notice, as Agnes’s 
cook had given her notice that morning. It 
was about that matter she wished to see Father 
Ferguson, for it was through the priest she had 
heard of the impertinent Irish girl who cooked 
so well, but who had such an independent man- 
ner, and who would not wear a cap ! 

Yes, it certainly seemed unfair that Teresa 
would now be rid of all domestic worries — nay, 
more, that the woman who had sinned would 
live in luxurious hotels, motoring and shopping 
all day, going to the theatre or to a music-hall 
each night. 

At last, however, Agnes dismissed Teresa 
Maldo from her mind. She knew that it is not 
healthy to dwell overmuch on such people and 
their doings. 

The few acquaintances Mrs. Barlow met on 
her way smiled and nodded, but, as she was 
walking rather quickly, no one tried to stop 
her. She had chosen the back way to the 
church because it was the prettiest way, and 
also because it would take her by a house 
where a friend of hers was living in lodgings. 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 195 

And suddenly the very friend in question — 
his name was Ferrier — came out of his lodg- 
ings. He had a tall, slight, active figure ; 
he was dressed in a blue serge suit, and, 
though it was still early spring, he wore a 
straw hat. 

Agnes smiled a little inward smile. She 
was, as we already know, a very good as well 
as a happy woman. But a woman as pretty as 
was Agnes Barlow meets with frequent pleasant 
occasions of withstanding temptation, of which 
those about her, especially her dear parents and 
her kind husband, are often curiously unknow- 
ing. And the tall, well-set-up masculine figure 
now hurrying toward her with such eager steps 
played a considerable part in Agnes’s life, if 
only as constantly providing her with occasions 
of acquiring merit. 

Agnes knew very well — even the least imag- 
inative woman is always acutely conscious of 
such a fact — that, had she not been a prudent 
and a ladylike as well as (of course) a very 
good woman, this clever, agreeable, interesting 
young man would have made love to her. As 
it was, he (of course) did nothing of the kind. 
He did not even try to flirt with her, as our 
innocent Agnes understood that much-tried 
verb ; and she regarded their friendship as a 
pleasant interlude in her placid, well-regulated 


196 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

existence, and as a most excellent influence on 
his more agitated life. 

Mr. Ferrier lifted his hat. He smiled down 
into Agnes’s blue eyes. What very charming, 
nay, what beautiful eyes they were ! Deeply, 
exquisitely blue, but unshadowed, as innocent 
of guile, as are a child’s eyes. 

‘‘Somehow, I had a kind of feeling that you 
would be coming by just now,” he said in a 
rather hesitating voice; “so I left my work 
and came out on chance.” 

Now, Agnes was very much interested in 
Mr. Perrier’s work. Mr. Ferrier was not only 
a writer — the only writer she had ever known ; 
he was also a poet. She had been pleas- 
antly thrilled the day he had given her a 
slim little book, on each page of which was 
a poem. This gift had been made when 
they had known each other only two months, 
and he had inscribed it: “From G. G. F. 
to A. M. B.” 

Mr. Ferrier had a charming studio flat in 
Chelsea, that odd, remote place where London 
artists live, far from the pleasant London of 
the shops and theatres which was all Agnes 
knew of the great City near which she dwelt. 
But he always spent the summer in the coun- 
try, and' his summer lasted from the ist of 
May till the ist of October. He had already 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 197 
spent two holidays at Summerfield, and had 
been a great deal at The Haven. 

When with Mr. Ferrier, and they were much 
together during the long week-days when 
Summerfield is an Adamless Eden, Agnes 
Barlow made a point of often speaking of 
dear Frank and of Frank’s love for her, — not, 
of course, in a way that any one could have 
regarded as silly, but in a natural, happy, 
simple way. 

How easy, how very easy, it is to keep this 
kind of friendship — friendship between a man 
and a woman — within bounds ! And how ter- 
ribly sad it was to think that Teresa Maldo had 
not known how to do that easy thing ! But 
then, Teresa’s lover had been a married man 
separated from his wife, and that doubtless 
made all the difference. Agnes Barlow could 
assure herself in all sincerity that, had Mr. 
Ferrier been the husband of another woman, 
she would never have allowed him to become 
her friend to the extent that he was now. 

Mr. Ferrier — Agnes never allowed herself 
to think of him as Gerald (although he had 
once asked her to call him by his Christian 
name) — held an evening paper in his hand. 

‘‘I was really on my way to The Haven,” 
he observed, ‘‘for there are a few verses of 
mine in this paper which I am anxious you 


198 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

should read. Shall I go on and leave it at 
your house, or will you take it now? And 
then, if I may, I will call for it some time to- 
morrow. Should I be likely to find you in 
about four o’clock ? ” 

‘‘Yes, ril be in about four, and I think I’ll 
take the paper now.” 

And then — for she was walking very slowly, 
and Perrier, with his hands behind his back, 
kept pace with her — Agnes could not resist 
the pleasure of looking down at the open 
sheet, for the newspaper was so turned about 
that she could see the little set of verses quite 
plainly. 

The poem was called “My Lady of the 
Snow,” and it told in very pretty, complicated 
language of a beautiful, pure woman whom the 
writer loved in a desperate but quite respectful 
way. 

She grew rather red. “ I must hurry on, 
for I am going to church,” she said a little 
stiffly. “ Good evening, Mr. Perrier. Yes, I 
will keep the paper till to-morrow, if I may. 
I should like to show it to Prank. He hasn’t 
been to the office to-day, for he isn’t very well, 
and he will like to see an evening paper.” 

Mr. Perrier lifted his hat with a rather sad 
look, and turned back toward the house where 
he lodged. And as Agnes walked on she felt 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 199 
disturbed and a little uncomfortable. Her 
clever friend had evidently been grieved by 
her apparent lack of appreciation of his poem. 

When she reached the church her parents 
had helped to build, she went in, knelt down, 
and said a prayer. Then she got up and 
walked through into the sacristy. Father 
Ferguson was almost certain to be there just 
now. 

Agnes Barlow had known the old priest all 
her life. He had baptized her; he had been 
chaplain at the convent during the years she 
had been at school there; and now he had 
come back to be parish priest at Summerfield. 

When with Father Ferguson, Agnes some- 
how never felt quite so good as she did when 
she was by herself or with a strange priest ; 
and yet Father Ferguson was always very kind 
to her. 

As she came into the sacristy he looked 
round with a smile. ‘‘ Well ?” he said. ‘‘Well, 
Agnes, my child, what can I do for you ? ” 

Agnes put the newspaper she was holding 
down on a chair. And then, to her surprise. 
Father Ferguson took up the paper and glanced 
over the front page. He was an intelligent 
man, and sometimes he found Summerfield a 
rather shut-in, stifling sort of place. 

But the priest’s instinctive wish to know 


200 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

something of what was passing in the great 
world outside the suburb where it was his duty 
to dwell did him an ill turn, for something he 
read in the paper caused him to utter a low, 
quick exclamation of intense pain and horror. 

“What’s the matter?” cried Agnes Barlow, 
frightened out of her usual self-complacency. 
“Whatever has happened. Father Ferguson ? ” 

He pointed with shaking finger to a small 
paragraph. It was headed “ Suicide of a Lady 
at Dover,” and Agnes read the few lines with 
bewildered and shocked amazement. 

Teresa Maldo, whom she had visioned, only 
a few minutes ago, as leading a merry, glo- 
riously careless life with her lover, was dead. 
She had thrown herself out of a bedroom 
window in a hotel at Dover, and she had been 
killed instantly, dashed into a shapeless mass 
on the stones below. 

Agnes stared down at the curt, cold little 
paragraph with excited horror. She was six- 
and-twenty, but she had never seen death, and, 
as far as she knew, the girls with whom she had 
been at school were all living. Teresa — poor 
unhappy, sinful Teresa — had been the first to 
die, and by her own hand. 

The old priest’s eyes slowly brimmed over 
with tears. “ Poor, unhappy child ! ” he said, 
with a break in his voice. “ Poor, unfortunate 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 201 

Teresa ! I did not think, I should never have 
believed, that she would seek — and find — this 
terrible way out.’' 

Agnes was a little shocked at his broken 
words. True, Teresa had been very unhappy, 
and it was right to pity her ; but she had also 
been very wicked ; and now she had put, as it 
were, the seal on her wickedness by killing 
herself. 

‘‘Three or four days before she went away 
she came and saw me,” the priest w^ent on, in 
a low, pained voice. “ I did everything in my 
power to stop her, but I could do nothing — 
she had given her word ! ” 

“Given her word?” repeated Agnes won- 
deringly. 

“Yes,” said Father Ferguson; “she had 
given that wretched, that wickedly selfish man 
her promise. She believed that if she broke 
her word he would kill himself. I begged her 
to go and see some woman — some kind, pitiful, 
understanding woman — but I suppose she 
feared lest such a one would dissuade her to 
more purpose than I was able to do. 

Agnes looked at him with troubled eyes. 

“ She was very dear to my heart,” the priest 
went on. “She was always a generous, un- 
selfish child, and she was very, very fond of 
you, Agnes.” 


202 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


Agnes’s throat tightened. What Father 
Ferguson said was only too true. Teresa had 
always been a very generous and unselfish girl, 
and very, very fond of her. She wondered 
remorsefully if she had omitted to do or say 
anything she could have done or said on the 
day that poor Teresa had come and spoken 
such strange, wild words ? 

“ It seems so awful,” she said in a low voice, 
‘‘so very, very awful to think that we may not 
even pray for her soul, Father Ferguson.” 

“Not pray for her soul ? ” the priest repeated. 
“ Why should we not pray for the poor child’s 
soul? I shall certainly pray for Teresa’s soul 
every day till I die.” 

“But — but how can you do that, when she 
killed herself?” 

He looked at her surprised. “ And do you 
really so far doubt God’s mercy? Surely we 
may hope — nay, trust — that Teresa had time to 
make an act of contrition ? ” And then he 
muttered something — it sounded like a line or 
two of poetry — which Agnes did not quite 
catch ; but she felt, as she often did feel when 
with Father Ferguson, at once rebuked and 
rebellious. 

Of course there might have been time for 
Teresa to make an act of contrition. But 
every one knows that to take one’s life is a 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 203 

deadly sin. Agnes felt quite sure that if it ever 
occurred to herself to do such a thing she would 
go straight to hell. Still, she was used to obey 
this old priest, and that even when she did not 
agree with him. So she followed him into the 
church, and side by side they knelt down and 
each said a separate prayer for the soul of 
Teresa Maldo. 

As Agnes Barlow walked slowly and soberly 
home, this time by the high road, she tried 
to remember the words, the lines of poetry, 
that Father Ferguson had muttered. They at 
once haunted and eluded her memory. Surely 
they could not be 

Between the window and the ground, 

She mercy sought and mercy found. 


No, Agnes was sure that he had not said 
“window,” and yet window seemed the only 
word that would fit the case. And he had not 
said, she mercy found”; he had said, he 
mercy sought and mercy found ” — of that 
Agnes felt sure, and that, too, was odd. But 
then. Father Ferguson was very odd some- 
times, and he was fond of quoting in his 
sermons queer little bits of verse of which no 
one had ever heard. 

Suddenly she bethought herself, with more 
annoyance than the matter was worth, that 


204 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

in her agitation she had left Mr. Perrier’s 
newspaper in the sacristy. She did not like 
the thought that Father Ferguson would prob- 
ably read those pretty, curious verses, ‘‘My 
Lady of the Snow.” 

Also, Agnes had actually forgotten to speak 
to the old priest of her impertinent cook ! 


II 

We find Agnes Barlow again walking in 
Summerfield ; but this time she is hurrying 
along the straight, unlovely cinder-strewn path 
which forms a short cut from the back of The 
Haven to Summerfield station ; and the still, 
heavy calm of a late November afternoon 
broods over the rough ground on either side 
of her. 

It is nearly six months since Teresa Maldo’s 
elopement and subsequent suicide, and now 
no one ever speaks of poor Teresa, no one 
seems to remember that she ever lived, except- 
ing, perhaps. Father Ferguson. . . . 

As for Agnes herself, life had crowded far 
too many happenings into the last few weeks 
for her to give more than a passing thought to 
Teresa ; indeed, the image of her dead friend 
rose before her only when she was saying her 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 205 

prayers. And as Agnes, strange to say, had 
grown rather careless as to her prayers, the 
memory of Teresa Maldo was now very faint 
indeed. 

An awful, and to her an incredible, thing 
had happened to Agnes Barlow. The roof of 
her snug and happy House of Life had fallen 
in, and she lay, blinded and maimed, beneath 
the fragments which had been hurled down on 
her in one terrible moment. 

Yes, it had all happened in a moment — so 
she now reminded herself, with the dull ache 
which never left her. 

It was just after she had come back from 
Westgate with little Francis. The child had 
been ailing for the first time in his life, and she 
had taken him to the seaside for six weeks. 

There, in a day, it had turned from summer 
to winter, raining as it only rains at the sea- 
side ; and suddenly Agnes had made up her 
mind to go back to her own nice, comfortable 
home a whole week before Frank expected her 
back. 

Agnes sometimes acted like that — on a quick 
impulse ; she did so to her own undoing on 
that dull, rainy day. 

When she reached Summerfield, it was to 
find her telegram to her husband lying un- 
opened on the hall table of The Haven. 


206 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Frank, it seemed, had slept in town the night 
before. Not that that mattered, so she told 
herself gleefully, full of the pleasant joy of 
being again in her own home ; the surprise 
would be the greater and the more welcome 
when Frank did come back. 

Having nothing better to do that first after- 
noon, Agnes had gone up to her husband’s 
dressing-room in order to look over his summer 
clothes before sending them to the cleaner. In 
her careful, playing-at-housewifely fashion, she 
had turned out the pockets of his cricketing 
coat. There, a little to her surprise, she had 
found three letters, and idle curiosity as to 
Frank’s invitations during her long stay away 
— Frank was deservedly popular with the 
ladies of Summerfield and, indeed, with all 
women — caused her to take the three letters 
out of their envelopes. 

In a moment — how terrible that it should 
take but a moment to shatter the fabric of 
a human being’s innocent House of Life ! — 
Agnes had seen what had happened to her 
— to him. For each of these letters, written 
in the same sloping woman’s hand, was a love 
letter signed ‘‘Janey”; and in each the 
writer, in a plaintive, delicate, but insistent and 
reproachful way, asked Frank for money. 

Even now, though nearly seven weeks had 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 207 

gone by since then, Agnes could recall with 
painful vividness the sick, cold feeling that 
had come over her — a feeling of fear rather 
than anger, of fear and desperate humiliation. 

Locking the door of the dressing-room, she 
had searched eagerly — a dishonourable thing 
to do, as she knew well. And soon she had 
found other letters — letters and bills ; bills of 
meals at restaurants, showing that her husband 
and a companion had constantly dined and 
supped at the Savoy, the Carlton, and Prince’s. 
To those restaurants where he had taken her, 
Agnes, two or three times a year, laughing 
and grumbling at the expense, he had taken 
this — this person again and again in the short 
time his wife had been away. 

As to the further letters, all they proved was 
that Frank had first met ‘^Janey Cartwright” 
over some law business of hers, connected — 
even Agnes saw the irony, of it — in some 
shameful way with another man ; for, tied 
together, were a few notes signed with the 
writer’s full name, of which the first began : 

Dear Mr. Barlow : 

Forgive me for writing to your private address 
[etc., etc.]. 

The ten days that followed her discovery had 
seared Agnes’s soul. Frank had been so 


208 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

dreadfully affectionate. He had pretended — 
she felt sure it was all pretence — to be so glad 
to see her again, though sometimes she caught 
him looking at her with cowed, miserable eyes. 

More than once he had asked her solicitously 
if she felt ill, and she had said yes, she did feel 
ill, and the time at the seaside had not done 
her any good. 

And then, on the last of those terrible ten 
days, Gerald Ferrier had come down to Sum- 
merfield, and both she and Frank had pressed 
him to stay on to dinner. He had done so, 
though aware that something was wrong, and 
he had been extraordinarily kind, sympathetic, 
unquestioning. But as he was leaving he had 
said a word to his host : I feel worried about 
Mrs. Barlow — Agnes had heard him through 
the window. “She doesn’t look the thing, 
somehow ! How would it be if I asked her to 
go with me to a private view ? It might cheer 
her up, and perhaps she would lunch with me 
afterwards?” Frank had eagerly assented. 

Since then Agnes had gone up to London, 
if not every day, very nearly every day, and 
Mr. Ferrier had done his best, without much 
success, to “cheer her up.” 

Though they soon became more intimate 
than they had ever been, Agnes never told 
Ferrier what it was that had turned her from 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 209 


a happy, unquestioning child into a miserable 
woman ; but, of course, he guessed. 

And gradually Frank alsQ had come to know 
that she knew, and, man-like, he spent less and 
less time in his now uncomfortable home. He 
would go away in the morning an hour earlie'r 
than usual, and then, under pretext of business 
keeping him late at the office, he would come 
back after having dined, doubtless with 
‘‘ Janey,” in town. 

Soon Agnes began to draw a terrible com- 
parison between these two men — between the 
husband who had all she had of heart, and the 
friend whom she now acknowledged to herself 
— for hypocrisy had fallen away from her — had 
lived only for her, and for the hours they were 
able to spend together, during two long years, 
and yet who had never told her of his love, or 
tried to disturb her trust in Frank. 

Yes, Gerald Ferrier was all that was noble — 
Frank Barlow all that was ignoble. So she 
told herself with trembling lip a dozen times 
a day, taking fierce comfort in the knowledge 
that Ferrier was noble. But she was destined 
even to lose that comfort ; for one day, a week 
before the day when we find her walking to 
Summerfield station, Ferrier s nobility, or what 
poor Agnes took to be such, suddenly broke 
down. 


14 


210 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

They had been walking together in Battersea 
Park, and, after one of those long silences 
which bespeak true intimacy between a man 
and a woman, he had asked her if she would 
come back to his rooms — for tea. 

She had shaken her head smilingly. And 
then he had turned on her with a torrent of 
impetuous, burning words — words of ardent 
love, of anguished longing, of eager pleading. 
And Agnes had been frightened, fascinated, 
allured. 

And that had not been all. 

More quietly he had gone on to speak as if the 
code of morality in which his friend had been 
bred, and which had hitherto so entirely satis- 
fied her, was, after all, nothing but a narrow 
counsel of perfection, suited to those who were 
sheltered and happy, but wretchedly inade- 
quate to meet the needs of the greater number 
of human beings who are, as Agnes now was, 
humiliated and miserable. His words had 
found an echo in her sore heart, but she had 
not let him see how much they moved her. 
On the contrary, she had rebuked him, and 
for the first time they had quarrelled. 

‘‘If you ever speak to me like that again,’* 
she had said coldly, “1 will not come 
again.” 

And once more he had turned on her 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 211 

violently. ‘‘ I think you had better not come 
again ! I am but a man after all ! ” 

They parted enemies ; but the same night 
Ferrier wrote Agnes a very piteous letter asking 
pardon on his knees for having spoken as he 
had done. And his letter moved her to the 
heart. Her own deep misery — never for one 
moment did she forget Frank, and Frank’s 
treachery — made her understand the torment 
that Ferrier was going through. 

For the first time she realized, what so few 
of her kind ever realize, that it is a mean thing 
to take everything and give nothing in ex- 
change. And gradually, as her long, solitary 
hours wore themselves away, Agnes came to 
believe that if she did what she now knew 
Ferrier desired her to do, — if, casting the past 
behind her, she started a new life with him — 
she would not only be doing a generous thing 
by the man who had loved her silently and 
faithfully for so long, but she would also be 
punishing Frank — hurting him in his honour, 
as he had hurt her in hers. 

And then the stars that fight in their courses 
for those lovers who are also poets fought for 
Ferrier. 

The day after they had quarrelled and he 
had written her his piteous letter of remorse, 
Gerald Ferrier fell ill. But he was not too ill 


212 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

to write. And after he had been ill four days, 
and when Agnes was feeling very, very miser- 
able, he wrote and told her of a wonderful 
vision which had been vouchsafed to him. 

In this vision Ferrier had seen Agnes knock- 
ing at the narrow front door of the lonely flat 
where he lived solitary ; and through the door 
had slipped in his angelic visitant, by her mere 
presence bringing him peace, health, and the 
happiness he was schooling himself to believe 
must never come to him through her. 

The post which brought her the letter in 
which Ferrier told his vision brought also to 
Agnes Barlow a little registered parcel contain- 
ing a pearl-and-diamond pendant from Frank. 

For a few moments the two lay on her knee. 
Then she took up the jewel and looked at it 
curiously. Was it with such a thing as this 
that her husband thought to purchase her 
forgiveness ? 

If Terrier’s letter had never been written, if 
Frank’s gift had never been despatched, it may 
be doubted whether Agnes would have done 
what we now find her doing — hastening, that 
is, on her way to make Terrier’s dream come 
true. 

At last she reached the little suburban 
station of Summerfield. 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 213 

One of her father s many kindnesses to her 
each year was the gift of a season ticket to 
town ; but to-day some queer instinct made 
her buy a ticket at the booking-office instead. 

The booking-clerk peered out at her, sur- 
prised ; then made up his mind that pretty 
Mrs. Barlow — she wore to-day a curiously 
thick veil — had a friend with her. But his 
long, ruminating stare made her shrink and 
flush. Was it possible that what she was 
about to do was written on her face ? 

She was glad indeed when the train steamed 
into the station. She got into an empty car- 
riage, for the rush that goes on each evening 
Londonward from the suburbs had not yet 
begun. 

And then, to her surprise, she found that it 
was the thought of her husband, not of the 
man to whom she was going to give herself, 
that filled her sad, embittered heart. 

Old memories — memories connected with 
Frank, his love for her, her love for him — 
became insistent. She lived again, while tears 
forced themselves into her closed eyes, through 
the culminating moment of her marriage day, 
the start for the honeymoon, — a start made 
amid a crowd of laughing, cheering friends, 
from the little station she had just left. 

She remembered the delicious tremor which 


214 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

had come over her when she had found herself 
at last alone, really alone, with her three-hour- 
old bridegroom. 

How infinitely kind and tender Frank had 
been to her ! 

And then Agnes reminded herself, with 
tightening breath, that men like Frank Barlow 
are always kind — too kind — to women. 

Other journeys she and Frank had taken 
together came and mocked her, and especially 
the journey which had followed a month after 
little Francis’s birth. 

Frank had driven with her, the nurse, and 
the baby, to the station — but only to see them 
off. He had had a very important case in 
the Courts just then, and it was out of the 
question that he should go with his wife to 
Littlehampton for the change of air, the few 
weeks by the sea, that had been ordered by 
her good, careful doctor. 

And then at the last moment Frank had 
suddenly jumped into the railway carriage 
without a ticket, and had gone along with her 
part of the way ! She remembered the sur- 
prise of the monthly nurse, the woman’s 
prim remark, when he had at last got out at 
Horsham, that Mr. Barlow was certainly the 
kindest husband she, the nurse, had ever 
seen. 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 215 

But these memories, now so desecrated, did 
not make her give up her purpose. Far 
from it, for in a queer way they made her 
think more tenderly of Gerald Ferrier, whose 
life had been so lonely, and who had known 
nothing of the simpler human sanctities and 
joys, and who had never — so he had told her 
with a kind of bitter scorn of himself — been 
loved by any woman whom he himself could 
love. 

In her ears there sounded Ferrier’s quick, 
hoarsely uttered words : ‘‘ D’you think I should 
ever have said a word to you of all this — if 
you had gone on being happy? D’you think 
I’d ask you to come to me if I thought you 
had any chance of being happy with him — 
now f 

And she knew in her soul that he had spoken 
truly. Ferrier would never have tried to dis- 
turb her happiness with Frank ; he had never 
so tried during those two years when they 
had seen so much of each other, and when 
Agnes had known, deep down in her heart, 
that he loved her, though it had suited her 
conscience to pretend that his love was only 
‘‘ friendship.” 


216 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


III 

The train glided into the fog-laden London 
station, and very slowly Agnes Barlow stepped 
down out of the railway carriage. She felt 
oppressed by the fact that she was alone. 
During the last few weeks Ferrier had always 
been standing on the platform waiting to greet 
her, eager to hurry her into a cab — to a picture 
gallery, to a concert, or of late, oftenest of all, 
to one of those green oases which the great 
town still leaves her lovers. 

But now Ferrier was not here. Ferrier was 
ill, solitary, in the lonely rooms which he 
called ‘‘home.” 

Agnes Barlow hurried out of the station. 

Hammer, hammer, hammer went what she 
supposed was her heart. It was a curious, to 
Agnes a new sensation, bred of the fear that 
she would meet some acquaintance to whom 
she would have to explain her presence in 
town. She could not help being glad that the 
fog was of that dense, stifling quality which 
makes every one intent on his own business 
rather than on that of his neighbours. 

Then something happened which scared 
Agnes. She was walking, now very slowly, 
out of the station, when a tall man came up to 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 217 

her. He took off his hat and peered inso- 
lently into her face. 

“I think Uve had the pleasure of meeting 
you before,” he said. 

She stared at him with a great, unreasonable 
fear gripping her heart. No doubt this was 
some business acquaintance of Frank’s. “ I — 
I don’t think so,” she faltered. 

‘‘Oh, yes,” he said. “Don’t you remem- 
ber, two years ago at the Pirola in Regent 
Street? I don’t think I can be wrong.” 

And then Agnes understood. “You are 
making a mistake,” she said breathlessly, and 
quickened her steps. 

The man looked after her with a jeering 
smile, but he made no further attempt to 
molest her. 

She was trembling — shaken with fear, dis- 
gust, and terror. It was odd, but such a thing 
had never happened to pretty Agnes Barlow 
before. She was not often alone in London ; 
she had never been there alone on such a 
foggy evening, an evening which invited such 
approaches as those she had just repulsed. 

She touched a respectable-looking woman 
on the arm. “Can you tell me the way to 
Flood Street, Chelsea ? ” she asked, her voice 
faltering. 

“Why, yes. Miss. It’s a good step from 


/ 

218 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
here, but you can’t mistake it. You’ve only 
got to go straight along, and then ask again 
after you’ve been walking about twenty 
minutes. You can’t mistake it.” And she 
hurried on, while Agnes tried to keep in step 
behind her, for the slight adventure outside 
the station became retrospectively terrifying. 
She thrilled with angry fear lest that — that 
brute should still be stalking he^ but when 
she looked over her shoulder she saw that the 
pavement was nearly bare of walkers. 

At last the broad thoroughfare narrowed to 
a point where four streets converged. Agnes 
glanced fearfully this way and that. Which of 
those shadowy black-coated figures hurrying 
past, intent on their business, would direct her 
rightly ? Within the last half-hour Agnes had 
grown horribly afraid of men. 

And then, with more relief than the fact 
warranted, across the narrow roadway she saw 
emerge, between two parting waves of fog, 
the shrouded figure of a woman leaning against 
a dead wall. 

Agnes crossed the street, but as she stepped 
up on to the kerb, suddenly there broke from 
her, twice repeated, a low, involuntar}" cry of 
dread. 

‘‘Teresa!” she cried. And then, again, 
“Teresa ^ ” For in the shrouded figure before 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 219 

her she had recognized, with a thrill of in- 
credulous terror, the form and lineaments of 
Teresa Maldo. 

But there came no answering cry ; and Agnes 
gave a long, gasping, involuntary sigh of relief 
as she realized that what had seemed to be her 
dead friend’s dark, glowing face was the face 
of a little child — a black-haired beggar child, 
with large startled eyes wide open on a living 
world. 

The tall woman whose statuesque figure had 
so strangely recalled Teresa’s supple, power- 
ful form was holding up the child, propping it 
on the wall behind her. 

Still shaking with the chill terror induced 
by the vision she now believed she had not 
seen, Agnes went up closer to the melancholy 
group. 

Even now she longed to hear the woman 
speak. ‘‘Can you tell me the way to Flood 
Street?” she asked. 

The woman looked at her fixedly. “No, 
that I can’t,” she said listlessly. “I’m a 
stranger here.” And then, with a passionate 
energy which startled Agnes, “For God’s 
sake, give me something, lady, to help me 
to get home ! I’ve walked all the way from 
Essex ; it’s taken me, oh ! so long with the 
child, though we’ve had a lift here and a lift 


220 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
there, and I haven’t a penny left. I came to 
find my husband ; but he’s lost himself — on 
purpose ! ” 

A week ago, Agnes Barlow would have 
shaken her head and passed on. She had 
always held the theory, carefully inculcated 
by her careful parents, that it is wrong to give 
money to beggars in the streefT^ 

But perhaps the queer illusion that she had 
just experienced made her remember Father 
Ferguson. In a flash she recalled a sermon of 
the old priest’s which had shocked and dis- 
turbed his prosperous congregation, for in it 
the preacher had advanced the astounding 
theory that it is better to give to nine im- 
postors than to refuse the one just man ; nay, 
more, he had reminded his hearers of the old 
legend that Christ sometimes comes, in the 
guise of a beggar, to the wealthy. 

She took five shillings out of her purse, and 
put them, not in the woman’s hand, but in that 
of the little child. 

‘‘ Thank you,” said the woman dully. May 
God bless you ! ” That was all, but Agnes 
went on, vaguely comforted. 

And now at last, helped on her way by more 
than one good-natured wayfarer, she reached 
the quiet, but shabby Chelsea street where 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 221 

Perrier lived. The fog* had drifted towards the 
river, and in the lamplight Agnes Barlow was 
not long in finding a large open door, above 
which was inscribed: ‘‘The Thomas More 
Studios.” 

Agnes walked timorously through into the 
square, empty, gas-lit hall, and looked round 
her with distaste. The place struck her as 
very ugly and forlorn, utterly lacking in what 
she had always taken to be the amenities of 
flat life — an obsequious porter, a lift, electric 
light. 

How strange of Perrier to have told her that 
he lived in a building that was beautiful ! 

Springing in bold and simple curves, rose a 
wrought-iron staircase, filling up the centre of 
the narrow, towerlike building. Agnes knew 
that Perrier lived high up, somewhere near the 
top. 

She waited a moment at the foot of the stair- 
case. She was gathering up her strength, 
throwing behind her everything that had 
meant life, happiness, and — what signified* so 
very much to such a woman as herself — per- 
sonal repute. 

But, even so, Agnes did not falter in her 
purpose. She was still possessed, driven on- 
ward, by a passion of jealous misery. 

But, though her spirit was willing, ay, and 


222 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
more than willing, for revenge, her flesh was 
weak ; and as she began slowly walking up the 
staircase she started nervously at the grotesque 
shapes cast by her own shadow, and at the 
muffled sounds of her own footfalls. 

Half-way up the high building the gas-jets 
burned low, and Agnes felt aggrieved. What 
a mean, stupid econom}^ on the part of the 
owners of this strange, unnatural dwelling- 
place. 

How dreadful it would be if she were to 
meet any one she knew — any one belonging 
to what she was already unconsciously teach- 
ing herself to call her old, happy life ! As if 
in cruel answer to her fear, a door opened, and 
an old man, clad in a big shabby fur coat and 
broad-brimmed hat, came out. 

Agnes’s heart gave a bound in her bosom. 
Yes ; this was what she had somehow thought 
would happen. In the half-light she took the 
old man to be an eccentric acquaintance of her 
father’s. 

‘‘Mr. Willis?” she whispered hoarsely. 

He looked at her, surprised, resentful. 

“My name’s not Willis,” he said gruffly, as 
he passed her on his way down, and her heart 
became stilled. How could she have been so 
foolish as to take that disagreeable old man for 
kindly-natured Mr. Willis ? 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 223 

She was now very near the top. Only a 
storey and a half more, and she would be there. 
Her steps were flagging, but a strange kind of 
peace had fallen on her. In a few moments 
she would be safe, for ever, in Perrier’s arms. 
How strange and unreal the notion seemed ! 

And then — and then, as if fashioned by 
some potent incantation from the vaporous 
fog outside, a tall, grey figure rose out of 
nothingness, and stood, barring the way, on 
the steel floor of the landing above her. 

Agnes clutched the iron railing, too op- 
pressed rather than too frightened to speak. 
Out in the fog-laden street she had involun- 
tarily called out the other’s name. ‘‘Teresa? ” 
she had cried, “Teresa!” But this time no 
word broke from her lips, for she feared that 
if she spoke the other would answer. 

Teresa Maldo’s love, the sisterly love of 
which Agnes had been so little worthy, had 
broken down the gateless barrier which 
stretches its dense length between the living 
and the dead. What she, the living woman, 
had not known how to do for Teresa, the dead 
woman had come back to do for her — for now 
Agnes seemed suddenly able to measure the 
depth of the gulf into which she had been 
about to throw herself. . . . 

She stared with fearful, fascinated eyes at 


224 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
the immobile figure swathed in grey, cere-like 
garments, and her gaze travelled stealthfully 
up to the white, passionless face, drained of all 
expression save that of watchful concern and 
understanding tenderness. . . . 

With a swift movement Agnes turned round. 
Clinging to the iron rail, she stumbled down 
the stairway to the deserted hall, and with swift 
terror-hastened steps rushed out into the street. 

Through the fog she plunged, not even 
sparing a moment to look back and up to the 
dimly lighted window behind which poor 
Ferrier stood, — as a softer, a truer-natured 
woman might have done. Violently she put 
all thought of her lover from her, and as she 
hurried along with tightening breath, the in- 
stinct of self-preservation alone possessing her, 
she became more and more absorbed in mea- 
suring the fathomless depth of the pit in which 
she had so nearly fallen. 

Her one wish now was to get home — to get 
home — to get home — before Frank got back. 

But the fulfilment of that wish was denied 
her — for as Agnes Barlow walked, crying softly 
as she went, in the misty darkness along the 
road which led from Summerfield station to 
the gate of The Haven, there fell on her ear 
the rhythmical tramp of well-shod feet. 

She shrank near to the hedge, in no mood to 


THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 225 


greet or to accept greeting from a neighbour. 
But the walker was now close to her. He struck 
a match. 

‘‘Agnes?” It was Frank Barlow’s voice — 
shamed, eager, questioning. “Is that you? 
I thought — I hoped you would come home by 
this train.” 

And as she gave no immediate answer, as 
he missed — God alone knew with what relief — 
the prim, cold accents to which his wife had 
accustomed him of late, he hurried forward 
and took her masterfully in his arms. “Oh! 
my darling,” he whispered huskily, “I know 
I’ve been a beast — but I’ve never left off loving 
you — and I can’t stand your coldness, Agnes ; 
it’s driving me to the devil ! Forgive me, my 
pure angel ” 

And Frank Barlow’s pure angel did forgive 
him, and with a spontaneity and generous 
forgetfulness which he will ever remember. 
Nay, more ; Agnes — and this touched her 
husband deeply — even gave up her pleasant 
acquaintance with that writing fellow, Ferrier, 
because Ferrier, through no fault of his, was 
associated, in both their minds, with the terrible 
time each would have given so much to obliter- 
ate from the record of their otherwise cloudless 
married life. 




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WHY THEY MARRIED 


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WHY THEY MARRIED 


“God doeth all things well, though by what strange, 
solemn, and murderous contrivances.” 

I 

JOHN COXETER was sitting with his back 
J to the engine in a first-class carriage in 
the Paris-Boulogne night train. Not only 
Englishman, but Englishman of a peculiarly 
definite class, that of the London civil servant, 
was written all over his spare, still active 
figure. 

It was late September, and the rush home- 
wards had begun ; so Coxeter, being a man 
of precise and careful habit, had reserved a 
corner seat. Then, just before the train had 
started, a certain Mrs. Archdale, a young 
widowed lady with whom he was acquainted, 
had come up to him on the Paris platform, 
and to her he had given up his seat. 

Coxeter had willingly made the little sacri- 
fice of his personal comfort, but he had felt 
annoyed when Mrs. Archdale in her turn had 
229 


230 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


yielded the corner place with foolish altruism 
to a French lad exchanging* vociferous farewells 
with his parents. When the train started the 
boy did not give the seat back to the courteous 
Englishwoman to whom it belonged, and 
Coxeter, more vexed by the matter than it 
was worth, would have liked to punch the 
boy s head. 

And yet, as he now looked straight before 
him, sitting upright in the carriage which was 
rocking and jolting as only a French railway 
carriage can rock and jolt, he realized that he 
himself had gained by the lad’s lack of honesty. 
By having thus given away something which 
did not belong to her, Mrs. Archdale was now 
seated, if uncomfortably hemmed in and encom- 
passed on each side, just opposite to Coxeter 
himself. 

Coxeter was well aware that to stare at a 
woman is the height of bad breeding, but 
unconsciously he drew a great distinction 
between what is good taste to do when one is 
being observed, and that which one does when 
no one can catch one doing it. Without 
making the slightest effort, in fact by looking 
straight before him. Nan Archdale fell into his 
direct line of vision, and he allowed his eyes 
to rest on her with an unwilling sense that 
there was nothing in the world he had rather 


WHY THEY MARRIED 231 

they rested on. Her appearance pleased his 
fastidious, rather old-fashioned taste. Mrs. 
Archdale was wearing a long grey cloak. On 
her head was poised a dark hat trimmed with 
Mercury wings ; it rested lightly on the pale 
golden hair which formed so agreeable a con- 
trast to her deep blue eyes. 

Coxeter did not believe in luck ; the word 
which means so much to many men had no 
place in his vocabulary, or even in his imagina- 
tion. But, still, the sudden appearance of 
Mrs. Archdale in the great Paris station had 
been an agreeable surprise, one of those inci- 
dents which, just because of their unexpected- 
ness, make a man feel not only pleased with 
himself, but at one with the world. 

Before Mrs. Archdale had come up to the 
carriage door at which he was standing, several 
things had contributed to put Coxeter in an ill- 
humour. 

It had seemed to his critical British phlegm 
that he was surrounded, immersed against his 
will, in floods of emotion. Among his fellow 
travellers the French element predominated. 
Heavens ! how they talked — jabbered would 
be the better word — laughed and cried ! How 
they hugged and embraced one another ! 
Coxeter thanked God he was an Englishman. 

His feeling of bored disgust was intensified 


232 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

by the conduct of a long-nosed, sallow man, 
who had put his luggage into the same carriage 
as that where Coxeter’s seat had been reserved. 

Strange how the peculiar characteristics com- 
mon to the Jewish race survive, whatever be 
the accident of nationality. This man also was 
saying good-bye, his wife being a dark, thin, 
eager-looking woman of a very common French 
type. Coxeter looked at them critically, he 
wondered idly if the woman was Jewish too. 
On the whole he thought not. She was half 
crying, half laughing, her hands now clasping 
her husband’s arm, now travelling, with a 
gesture of tenderness, up to his fleshy face, 
while he seemed to tolerate rather than respond 
to her endearments and extravagant terms of 
affection. ^^Adieu^ mon petit homme adore!"' 
she finally exclaimed, just as the tickets were 
being examined, and to Coxeter’s surprise the 
adored one answered in a very English voice, 
albeit the utterance was slightly thick, “There, 
there ! That’ull do, my dear girl. It’s only 
for a fortnight after all.” 

Coxeter felt a pang of sincere pity for the 
poor fellow ; a cad, no doubt — but an English 
cad, cursed with an emotional French wife”: 

Then his attention had been most happily 
diverted by the unexpected appearance of Mrs. 
Archdale. She had come up behind him very 


WHY THEY MARRIED 233 

quietly, and he had heard her speak before 
actually seeing her. ‘‘Mr. Coxeter, are you 
going back to England, or have you only 
come to see someone off?” 

Not even then had Coxeter — to use a phrase 
which he himself would not have used, for 
he avoided the use of slang — “given himself 
away.” Over his lantern-shaped face, across 
his thin, determined mouth, there had still 
lingered a trace of the supercilious smile with 
which he had been looking round him. And, 
as he had helped Mrs. Archdale into the 
compartment, as he indicated to her the 
comfortable seat he had reserved for himself, 
not even she — noted though she was for her 
powers of sympathy and understanding — had 
divined the delicious tremor, the curious state 
of mingled joy and discomfort into which her 
sudden presence had thrown the man whom 
she had greeted a little doubtfully, by no 
means sure that he would welcome her com- 
panionship on a long journey. 

And, indeed, in spite of the effect she pro- 
duced upon him, in spite of the fact that she 
was the only human being who had ever had, 
or was ever likely to have, the power of making 
him feel humble, not quite satisfied with him- 
self— Coxeter disapproved of Mrs. Archdale. 
At the present moment he disapproved of her 


234 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
rather more than usual, for if she meant to 
give up that corner seat, why had she not so 
arranged as to sit by him? Instead, she was 
now talking to the French boy who occupied 
what should have been her seat. 

But Nan Archdale, as all her friends called 
her, was always like that. Coxeter never saw 
her, never met her at the houses to which he 
went simply in order that he might meet her, 
without wondering why she wasted so much 
of the time she might have spent in talking to 
him, and above all in listening to him, in 
talking and listening to other people. 

Four years ago, not long after their first 
acquaintance, he had made her an offer of 
marriage, impelled by something which had 
appeared at the time quite outside himself and 
his usual wise, ponderate view of life. He 
had been relieved, as well as keenly hurt, when 
she had refused him. 

Everything that concerned himself appeared 
to John Coxeter of such moment and import- 
ance that at the time it had seemed incredible 
that Nan Archdale would be able to keep 
to herself the peculiar honour which had 
befallen her, — one, by the way, which Coxeter 
had never seriously thought of conferring on 
any other woman. But as time went on he 
became aware that she had actually kept the 


WHY THEY MARRIED 285 

secret which was not hers to betray, and, 
emboldened by the knowledge that she alone 
knew of his humiliating bondship, he had 
again, after a certain interval, written and 
asked her if she would marry him. Again she 
had refused, in a kind, impersonal little note, 
and this last time she had gone so far as to 
declare that in this matter she really knew far 
better than he did himself what was good for 
him, and once more something deep in his 
heart had said ‘‘Amen.’’ 

When he thought about it, and he went on 
thinking about it more than was quite agree- 
able for his own comfort or peace of mind, 
Coxeter would tell himself, with what he be- 
lieved to be a vicarious pang of regret, that 
Mrs. Archdale had made a sad mistake as re- 
garded her own interest. He felt sure she was 
not fit to live alone ; he knew she ought to 
be surrounded by the kind of care and protec- 
tion which only a husband can properly bestow 
on a woman. He, Coxeter, would have known 
how to detach her from the unsuitable people 
by whom she was always surrounded. 

Nan Archdale, and Coxeter was much con- 
cerned that it was so, had an instinctive 
attraction for those poor souls who lead forlorn 
hopes, and of whom — they being unsuccessful 
in their fine endeavours — the world never hears. 


236 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
She also had a strange patience and tenderness 
for those ne’er-do-wells of whom even the 
kindest grow weary after a time. Nan had a 
mass of queer friends, old proteges for whom 
she worked unceasingly in a curious, detached 
fashion, which was quite her own, and utterly 
apart from any of the myriad philanthropic 
societies with which the world she lived in, 
and to which she belonged by birth, interests 
its prosperous and intelligent leisure. 

It was characteristic that Nan’s liking for 
John Coxeter often took the form of asking 
him to help these queer, unsatisfactory people. 
Why, even in this last week, while he had 
been in Paris, he had come into close relation 
with one of Mrs. Archdale’s ‘‘odd-come- 
shorts.” This time the man was an inventor, 
and of all unpractical and useless things he had 
patented an appliance for saving life at sea ! 

Nan Archdale had given the man a note to 
Coxeter, and it was characteristic of the latter 
that, while resenting what Mrs. Archdale had 
done, he had been at some pains when in Paris 
to see the man in question. The invention — 
as Coxeter had of course known would be the 
case — was a ridiculous affair, but for Nan’s 
sake he had agreed to submit it to the 
Admiralty expert whose business it is to con- 
sider and pronounce on such futile things. 


WHY THEY MARRIED 237 

The queer little model which its maker believed 
would in time supersede the life-belts now 
carried on every British ship, had but one 
merit, it was small and portable : at the present 
moment it lay curled up, looking like a cross 
between a serpent’s cast skin and a child’s 
spent balloon, in Coxeter’s portmanteau. Even 
while he had accepted the parcel with a coolly 
civil word of thanks, he had mentally com- 
posed the letter with which he would ultimately 
dash the poor inventor’s hopes. 

To-night, however, sitting opposite to her, 
he felt glad that he had been to see the man, 
and he looked forward to telling her about it. 
Scarcely consciously to himself, it always made 
Coxeter glad to feel that he had given Nan 
pleasure, even pleasure of which he disap- 
proved. 

And yet how widely apart were these two 
people’s sympathies and interests ! Putting 
Nan aside, John Coxeter was only concerned 
with two things in life — his work at the 
Treasury and himself — and people only in- 
terested him in relation to these two major 
problems of existence. Nan Archdale was a 
citizen of the world — a freewoman of that dear 
kingdom of romance which still contains so 
many fragrant byways and sunny oases for 
those who have the will to find them. But 


238 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

for her freedom of this kingdom she would 
have been a very sad woman, oppressed by 
the griefs and sorrows of that other world to 
which she also belonged, for Nan’s human 
circle was ever widening, and in her strange 
heart there seemed always room for those 
whom others rejected and despised. 

She had the power no human being had ever 
had — that of making John Coxeter jealous. 
This was the harder to bear inasmuch as he 
was well aware that jealousy is a very ridiculous 
human failing, and one with which he had no 
sympathy or understanding when it affected — 
as it sometimes did — his acquaintances and 
colleagues. Fortunately for himself, he was 
not retrospectively jealous — jealous that is of 
the dead man of whom certain people belong- 
ing to his and to Nan’s circle sometimes spoke 
of as ‘‘poor Jim Archdale.” Coxeter knew 
vaguely that Archdale had been a bad lot, 
though never actually unkind to his wife ; 
nay, more, during the short time their married 
life had lasted. Archdale, it seemed, had to a 
certain extent reformed. 

Although he was unconscious of it, John 
Coxeter was a very material human being, 
and this no doubt was why this woman had 
so compelling an attraction for him ; for Nan 
Archdale appeared to be k\\ spirit, and that in 


WHY THEY MARRIED 239 

spite of her eager, sympathetic concern in the 
lives which circled about hers. 

And yet? Yet there was certainly a strong, 
unspoken link between them, this man and 
woman who had so little in common the one 
with the other. They met often, if only 
because they both lived in Marylebone, that 
most conventional quarter of old Georgian 
London, she in Wimpole Street, he in a flat 
in Wigmore Street. She always was glad to 
see him, and seemed a little sorry when he left 
her. Coxeter was one of the rare human beings 
to whom Nan ever spoke of herself and of her 
own concerns. But, in spite of that curious 
kindliness, she did not do what so many people 
who knew John Coxeter instinctively did — ask 
his advice, and, what was, of course, more 
seldom done — take it. In fact he had some- 
times angrily told himself that Nan attached no 
weight to his opinion, and as time had gone 
on he had almost given up offering her 
unsought advice. 

John Coxeter attached great importance to 
health. He realized that a perfect physical 
condition is a great possession, and he took 
considerable pains to keep himself what he 
called ‘‘fit.’' Now Mrs. Archdale was reck- 
lessly imprudent concerning her health, the 
health, that is, which was of so great a value 


240 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

to him, her friend. She took her meals at 
such odd times ; she did not seem to mind, 
hardly to know, what she ate and drank ! 

Of the many strange things Coxeter had 
known her to do, by far the strangest, and 
one which he could scarcely think of without 
an inward tremor, had happened only a few 
months ago. 

Nan had been with an ailing friend, and the 
ailing friend’s only son, in the Highlands, and 
this friend, a foolish woman, — when recalling 
the matter Coxeter never omitted to call this 
lady a foolish woman — on sending her boy back 
to school, had given him what she had thought 
to be a dose of medicine out of the wrong 
bottle, a bottle marked ‘‘Poison.” Nothing 
could be done, for the boy had started on his 
long railway journey south before the mistake 
had been discovered, and even Coxeter, when 
hearing the story told, had realized that had he 
been there he would have been sorry, really 
sorry, for the foolish mother. 

But Nan’s sympathy — and on this point 
Coxeter always dwelt with a special sense 
of injury — had taken a practical shape. She 
had poured out a similar dose from the bottle 
marked “Poison” and had calmly drunk it, 
observing as she did so, “I don’t believe it 
is poison in the real sense of the word, but 


WHY THEY MARRIED 


241 


at any rate we shall soon be able to find out 
exactly what is happening to Dick.” 

Nothing, or at least nothing but a bad 
headache, had followed, and so far had Nan 
been justified of her folly. But to Coxeter 
it was terrible to think of what might have 
happened, and he had not shared in any degree 
the mingled amusement and admiration which 
the story, as told afterwards by the culpable 
mother, had drawn forth. In fact, so deeply 
had he felt about it that he had not trusted 
himself to speak of the matter to Mrs. 
Archdale. 

But Mrs. Archdale was not only reckless of 
her health ; she was also reckless — perhaps un- 
caring would be the truer word — of something 
which John Coxeter supposed every nice 
woman to value even more than her health 
or appearance, that is the curiously intangible, 
and yet so easily frayed, human vesture termed 
reputation. 

To John Coxeter the women of his own 
class, if worthy, that is, of consideration and 
respect, went clad in a delicate robe of 
ermine, and the thought that this ermine 
should have even a shade cast on its fairness 
was most repugnant to him. Now Nan Arch- 
dale was not as careful in this matter of keep- 
ing her ermine unspoiled and delicately white 

i6 


242 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

as she ought to have been, and this was the 
stranger inasmuch as even Coxeter realized 
that there was about his friend a Una-like 
quality which made her unafraid, because un- 
suspecting, of evil. 

Another of the cardinal points of Coxeter’s 
carefully thought-out philosophy of life was 
that in this world no woman can touch pitch 
without being defiled. And yet on one oc- 
casion, at least, the woman who now sat oppo- 
site to him had proved the falsity of this view. 
Nan Archdale, apparently indifferent to the 
opinion of those who wished her well, had 
allowed herself to be closely associated with 
one of those unfortunate members of her own 
sex who, at certain intervals in the history of 
the civilized world, become heroines of a drama 
of which each act takes place in the Law 
Courts. Of these dramas every whispered 
word, every piece of ‘‘business” — to pursue 
the analogy to its logical end — is overheard 
and visualized not by thousands but by 
millions, — in fact by all those of an age to 
read a newspaper. 

Had the woman in the case been Mrs. Arch- 
dale’s sister, Coxeter with a groan would have 
admitted that she owed her a duty, though a 
duty which he would fain have had her shirk 
or rather delegate to another. But this woman 


WHY THEY MARRIED 243 

was no sister, not even a friend, simply an old 
acquaintance known to Nan, ’tis true, over 
many years. Nan had done what she had 
done, had taken her in and sheltered her, 
going to the Court with her every day, simply 
because there seemed absolutely no one else 
willing to do it. 

When he had first heard of what Mrs. Arch- 
dale was undertaking to do, Coxeter had been 
so dismayed that he had felt called upon to 
expostulate with her. 

Very few words had passed between them. 
“Is it possible,” he had asked, “that you 
think her innocent? That you believe her 
own story ? ” 

To this Mrs. Archdale had answered with 
some distress, “I don’t know, I haven’t 

thought about it As she says she is — I 

hope she is. If she’s not. I’d rather not 
know it.” 

It had been -a confused utterance, and some- 
how she had made him feel sorry that he had 
said anything. Afterwards, to his surprise and 
unwilling relief, he discovered that Mrs. Arch- 
dale had not suffered in reputation as he had 
expected her to do. But it made him feel, 
more than ever, that she needed a strong, wise 
man to take care of her, and to keep her out of 
the mischief into which her unfortunate good- 


244 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
nature — that was the way Coxeter phrased it 
to himself — was so apt to lead her. 

It was just after this incident that he had 
again asked her to marry him, and that she had 
again refused him. But it was since then that 
he had become really her friend. 

At last Mrs. Archdale turned away, or else 
the French boy had come to an end of his 
eloquence. Perhaps she would now lean a 
little forward and speak to him — the friend 
whom she had not seen for some weeks and 
whom she had seemed so sincerely glad to see 
half an hour ago ? But no ; she remained 
silent, her face full of thought. 

Coxeter leant back ; as a rule he never read 
in a train, for he was aware that it is injurious 
to the eyesight to do so. But to-night he 
suddenly told himself that after all he might 
just as well look at the English paper he had 
bought at the station. He might at least see 
what sort of crossing they were going to have 
to-night. Not that he minded for himself. 
He was a good sailor and always stayed on 
deck whatever the weather, but he hoped it 
would be smooth for Mrs. Archdale’s sake. It 
was so unpleasant for a lady to have a rough 
passage. 

Again, before opening the paper, he glanced 


WHY THEY MARRIED 245 

across at her. She did not look strong ; 
that air of delicacy, combined as it was with 
perfect health — for Mrs. Archdale was never 
ill — was one of the things that made her attrac- 
tive to John Coxeter. When he was with 
a woman, he liked to feel that he was taking 
care of her, and that she was more or less 
dependent on his good offices. Somehow or 
other he always felt this concerning Nan Arch- 
dale, and that even when she was doing some- 
thing of which he disapproved and which he 
would fain have prevented her doing. 

Coxeter turned round so that the light should 
fall on the page at which he had opened his 
newspaper, which, it need hardly be said, was 
the Morning Post, Presently there came to him 
the murmuring of two voices, Mrs. Archdale’s 
clear, low utterances, and another’s, guttural 
and full. 

Ah ! then he had been right ; the fellow 
sitting there, on Nan’s other side, was a Jew : 
probably something financial, connected with 
the Stock Exchange. Coxeter of the Treasury 
looked at the man he took to be a financier 
with considerable contempt. Coxeter prided 
himself on his knowledge of human beings, — 
or rather of men, for even his self-satisfaction 
did not go so far as to make him suppose 
that he entirely understood women ; there had 


246 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

been a time when he had thought so, but that 
was a long while ago. 

He began reading his newspaper. There 
was a most interesting article on education. 
After having glanced at this, he studied more 
carefully various little items of social news 
which reminded him that he had been away 
from London for some weeks. Then, as he 
read on, the conversation between Nan Arch- 
dale and the man next to her became more 
audible to him. All the other people in the 
carriage were French, and so first one, and 
then the other, window had been closed. 

His ears had grown accustomed to the 
muffled, thundering sounds caused by the 
train, and gradually he became aware that 
Nan Archdale was receiving some singular 
confidences from the man with whom she was 
now speaking. The fellow was actually un- 
rolling before her the whole of his not very 
interesting life, and by degrees Coxeter began 
rather to overhear than to listen consciously 
to what was being said. 

The Jew, though English by birth, now 
lived in France. As a young man he had 
failed in business in London, and then he had 
made a fresh start abroad, apparently impelled 
thereto by his great affection for his mother. 
The Jewish race, so Coxeter reminded him- 


WHY THEY MARRIED 247 

self, are admirable in every relation of private 
life, and it was apparently in order that his 
mother might not have to alter her style of 
living that the person on whom Mrs. Archdale 
was now fixing her attention had finally ac- 
cepted a post in a Paris house of business — 
no, not financial, something connected with 
the sweetmeat trade. 

Coxeter gathered that the speaker had at 
last saved enough money to make a start for 
himself, and that now he was very prosperous. 
He spoke of what he had done with legitimate 
pride, and when describing the struggle he had 
gone through, the fellow used a very odd ex- 
pression, It wasn’t all jam ! ” he said. Now 
he was in a big way of business, going over to 
London every three months, partly in connec- 
tion with his work, partly to see his old mother. 

Behind his newspaper Coxeter told him- 
self that it was amazing any human being 
should tell so much of his private concerns to 
a stranger. Even more amazing was it that 
a refined, rather peculiar, woman like Nan 
Archdale should care to listen to such a com- 
monplace story. But listening she was, saying 
a word here and there, asking, too, very 
quaint, practical questions concerning the 
sweetmeat trade. Why, even Coxeter became 
interested in spite of himself, for the Jew was 


248 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

an intelligent man, and as he talked on Coxeter 
learned with surprise that there is a romantic 
and exciting side even to making sweets. 

‘‘What a pity it is,” he heard Nan say at 
last in her low, even voice, “that you can’t 
now come back to England and settle down 
there. Surely it would make your mother 
much happier, and you don’t seem to like 
Paris so very much ? ” 

“That is true,” said the man, “but — well, 
unluckily there’s an obstacle to my doing 
that ” 

Coxeter looked up from his paper. The 
stranger’s face had become troubled, pre-occu- 
pied, and his eyes were fixed, or so Coxeter 
fancied them to be, on Nan Archdale’s left 
hand, the slender bare hand on which the only 
ring was her wedding ring. 

Coxeter once more returned to his paper, 
but for some minutes he made no attempt to 
follow the dancing lines of print. 

“I trust you won’t be offended if I ask 
whether you are, or are not, a married lady?” 
The sweetmeat man’s voice had a curious 
note of shamed interrogation threading itself 
through the words. 

Coxeter felt surprised and rather shocked. 
This was what came of allowing oneself to be- 
come familiar with an underbred stranger ! But 


WHY THEY MARRIED 249 

Nan had apparently not so taken the imperti- 
nent question, for, ‘‘I am a widow,” Coxeter 
heard her answer gently, in a voice that had no 
touch of offence in it. 

And then, after a few moments, staring with 
frowning eyes at the spread-out sheet of news- 
paper before him, Coxeter, with increasing 
distaste and revolt, became aware that Mrs. 
Archdale was now receiving very untoward 
confidences — confidences which Coxeter had 
always imagined were never made save under 
the unspoken seal of secrecy by one man to 
another. This objectionable stranger was tell- 
ing Nan Archdale the story of the woman who 
had seen him off at the station, and whose 
absurd phrase, Adieu^ mon petit homme 
adore^'' had rung so unpleasantly in his, 
Coxeter s, ears. 

The eavesdropper was well aware that such 
stories are among the everyday occurrences of 
life, but his knowledge was largely theoretical ; 
John Coxeter was not the sort of man to whom 
other men are willing to confide their shames, 
sorrows, or even successes in a field of which 
the aftermath is generally bitter. 

In as far as such a tale can be told with 
decent ambiguity it was so told by this man of 
whose refinement Coxeter had formed so poor 
an opinion, but still the fact that he was telling 


250 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

it remained — and it was a fact which to such 
a man as Coxeter constituted an outrage on 
the decencies of life. 

Mrs. Archdale, by her foolish good-nature, 
had placed herself in such a position as to be 
consulted in a case of conscience concerning 
a Jewish tradesman and his light o' love, and 
now the man was debating with her as with 
himself, as to whether he should marry this 
woman, as to whether he should force on his 
respectable English mother a French daughter- 
in-law of unmentionable antecedents ! Coxeter 
gathered that the liaison had lasted ten years 
— that it had begun, in fact, very soon after 
the man had first come to Paris. 

In addition to his feeling of wrath that Nan 
Archdale should become cognisant of so sordid 
a tale, there was associated a feeling of shame 
that he, Coxeter, had overheard what it had 
not been meant that he should hear. 

Perforce the story went on to its melancholy 
and inconclusive end, and then, suddenly, 
Coxeter became possessed with a desire to 
see Nan Archdale’s face. He glanced across 
at her. To his surprise her face was expres- 
sionless ; but her left hand was no longer lying 
on her knee, it was supporting her chin, and 
she was looking straight before her. 

‘‘I suppose,” she said at last, ^‘that you 


WHY THEY MARRIED 251 

have made a proper provision for your — your 
friend ? I mean in case of your death. I 
hope you have so arranged matters that if 
anything should happen to you, this poor 
woman who loves you would not have to go 
back to the kind of life from which you took 
her.” Even Coxeter divined that Nan had not 
found it easy to say this thing. 

“Why, no, I haven’t done anything of that 
sort. I never thought of doing it ; she’s 
always been the delicate party. I am as 
strong as a horse ! ” 

“Still — still, life’s very uncertain.” Mrs. 
Archdale was now looking straight into the 
face of the stranger on whom she was thrust- 
ing unsought advice. 

“She has no claim on me, none at all ” 

the man spoke defensively. “I don’t think 
she’d expect anything of that sort. She’s had 
a very good time with me. After all, I haven’t 
treated her badly.” 

“I’m sure you haven’t,” Nan spoke very 
gently. “I am sure you have been always kind 
to her. But, if I may use the simile you used 
just now, life, even to the happiest, the most 
sheltered, of women, isn’t all jam ! ” 

The man looked at her with a doubting, 
shame-faced glance. “ I expect you’re right,” 
he said abruptly. “I ought to have thought 


252 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
of it. ril make my will when I’m in England 
this time — I ought to have done so before.” 

Suddenly Coxeter leant forward. He felt 
the time had come when he really must put 
an end to this most unseemly conversation. 

‘‘Mrs. Archdale?” he spoke loudly, in- 
sistently. She looked up, startled at the sharp- 
ness of the tone, and the man next her, whose 
eyes had been fixed on her face with so moved 
and doubting a look, sat back. “ I want to 
tell you that I’ve seen your inventor, and that 
I’ve promised to put his invention before the 
right quarter at the Admiralty.” 

In a moment Nan was all eagerness. “It 
really is a very wonderful thing,” she said ; 
“I’m so grateful, Mr. Coxeter. Did you go 
and see it tried ? I did, last time I was in 
Paris ; the man took me to a swimming-bath 
on the Seine — such an odd place — and there 
he tested it before me. I was really very much 
impressed. I do hope you will say a word 
for it. I am sure they would value your 
opinion.” 

Coxeter looked at her rather grimly. “No, 
I didn’t see it tested.” To think that she 
should have wasted even an hour of her time 
in such a foolish manner, and in such a queer 
place, too ! “I didn’t see the use of doing so, 
though of course the man was very anxious 


WHY THEY MARRIED 


253 


I should. I’m afraid the thing’s no good. 
How could it be?” He smiled superciliously, 
and he saw her redden. 

‘‘How unfair that is!” she exclaimed. 
“ How can you possibly tell whether it’s no 
good if you haven’t seen it tried? Now I have 
seen the thing tried.” 

There was such a tone of protest in her 
voice that Coxeter felt called upon to defend 
himself. “I daresay the thing’s all right in 
theory,” he said quickly, “and I believe what 
he says about the ordinary life-belts ; it’s quite 
true, I mean, that they drown more people 
than they save : but that’s only because people 
don’t know how to put them on. This thing’s 
a toy — not practical at all.” He spoke more 
irritably than he generally allowed himself to 
speak, for he could see that the Jew was listen- 
ing to all that they were saying. 

All at once, Mrs. Archdale actually included 
the sweetmeat stranger in their conversation, 
and Coxeter at last found himself at her re- 
quest most unwillingly taking the absurd model 
out of his bag. “Of course you’ve got to 
imagine this in a rough sea,” he said sulkily, 
playing the devil’s advocate, “and not in a 
fresh water river bath.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t mind trying it in a rough 
sea, Mr. Coxeter.” Nan smiled as she spoke. 


•^^54 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Coxeter wondered if she was really serious. 
Sometimes he suspected that Mrs. Archdale 
was making fun of him — but that surely was 
impossible. 


II 

When at last they reached Boulogne and 
went on board the packet, Coxeter’s ill-humour 
vanished. It was cold, raw, and foggy, and 
most of their fellow-passengers at once hurried 
below, but Mrs. Archdale decided to stay on 
the upper deck. This pleased her companion ; 
now at last he would have her to himself. 

In his precise and formal way he went to a 
good deal of trouble to make Nan comfortable ; 
and she, so accustomed to take thought for 
others, stood aside and watched him find a 
sheltered corner, secure with some difficulty a 
deck chair, and then defend it with grim de- 
termination against two or three people who 
tried to lay hands upon it. 

At last he beckoned to her to sit down. 
‘‘Where's your rug?" he asked. She answered 
meekly, “ I haven’t brought one." 

He put his own rug, — large, light, warm, 
the best money could buy — round her knees ; 
and in the pleasure it gave him to wait on her 
thus he did not utter aloud the reproof which 


WHY THEY MARRIED 255 

had been on his lips. But she saw him shake 
his head over a more unaccountable omission — 
on the journey she had somehow lost her 
gloves. He took his own off, and with a 
touch of masterfulness made her put them on, 
himself fastening the big bone buttons over 
each of her small, childish wrists ; but his 
manner while he did all these things — he would 
have scorned himself had it been otherwise — 
was impersonal, businesslike. 

There are men whose every gesture in con- 
nection with a woman becomes an instinctive 
caress. Such men, as every woman learns in 
time, are not good “stayers,” but they make 
the time go by very quickly — sometimes. 

With Coxeter every minute lasted sixty 
seconds. But Nan Archdale found herself look- 
ing at him with unwonted kindliness. At last 
she said, a little tremulously, and with a won- 
dering tone in her voice, “ You’re very kind to 
me, Mr. Coxeter.” Those who spend their lives 
in speeding others on their way are generally 
allowed to trudge along alone ; so at least this 
woman had found it to be. Coxeter made no 
answer to her words — perhaps he did not hear 
them. 

Even in the few minutes which had elapsed 
since they came on board, the fog had deep- 
ened. The shadowy figures moving about the 


256 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

deck only took substance when they stepped 
into the circle of brightness cast by a swinging 
globe of light which hung just above Nan 
Archdale’s head. Coxeter moved forward and 
took up his place in front of the deck-chair, 
protecting its occupant from the jostling of 
the crowd, for the sheltered place he had found 
stood but a little way back from the passage 
betw’een the land gangway and the iron stair- 
case leading to the lower deck. 

There were more passengers that night than 
usual. They passed, a seemingly endless pro- 
cession, moving slowly out of the darkness 
into the circle of light and then again into the 
white, engulfing mist. 

At last the deck became clear of moving 
figures ; the cold, raw fog had driven almost 
everyone below. But Coxeter felt curiously 
content, rather absurdly happy. This was to 
him a great adventure. . . . 

He took out his watch. If the boat started 
to time they would be off in another five 
minutes. He told himself that this was turning 
out a very pleasant journey ; as a rule when 
crossing the Channel one meets tiresome 
people one knows, and they insist on talking 
to one. And then, just as he was thinking 
this, there suddenly surged forward out of the 
foggy mist two people, a newly married couple 


WHY THEY MARRIED 257 

named Rendel, with whom both he and Mrs. 
Archdale were acquainted, at whose wedding 
indeed they had both been present some six 
or seven weeks ago. So absorbed in earnest 
talk with one another were the bride and 
bridegroom that they did not seem to see 
where they were going ; but when close to 
Mrs. Archdale they stopped short, and turned 
towards one another, still talking so eagerly 
as to be quite oblivious of possible eaves- 
droppers. 

John Coxeter, standing back in the shadow, 
felt a sudden gust of envious pain. They were 
evidently on their way home from their honey- 
moon, these happy young people, blessed with 
good looks, money, health, and love ; their 
marriage had been the outcome of quite a 
pretty romance. 

But stay, — what was this they were saying? 
Both he and Nan unwillingly heard the quick 
interchange of words, the wife’s shrill, angry 
utterances, the husband’s good-humoured ex- 
postulations. ‘‘ I won’t stay on the boat. Bob. 
I don’t see why we should risk our lives in 
order that you may be back in town to-morrow. 
I know it’s not safe — my great-uncle, the 
Admiral, always said that the worst storm at 
sea was not as bad as quite a small fog ! ” 
Then the gruff answer ; My dear child, don’t 
17 


258 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
be a fool ! The boat wouldn’t start if there 
was the slightest danger. You heard what 
that man told us. The fog was much worse 
this morning, and the boat was only an hour 
late ! ” ‘‘Well, you can do as you like, but I 
won’t cross to-night. Where’s the use of taking 

any risk? Mother’s uncle, the Admiral ” 

and Coxeter heard with shocked approval the 
man’s “ Damn your great-uncle, the Admiral ! ” 

There they stood, not more than three yards 
oif, the pretty, angry little spitfire looking up 
at her indignant, helpless husband. Coxeter, 
if disgusted, was amused ; there was also the 
comfort of knowing that they would certainly 
pretend not to see him, even if by chance 
they recognized him, intent as they were on 
their absurd difference. 

“ I shall go back and spend the night at the 
station hotel. No, you needn’t trouble to find 
Stockton for me — there’s no time.” Coxeter 
and Nan heard the laughing gibe, “Then you 
don’t mind your poor maid being drowned as 
well as your poor husband,” but the bride 
went on as if he hadn’t spoken — “I’ve quite 
enough money with me ; you needn’t give me 
a,nything — good-bye. ” 

She disappeared into the fog in the direction 
of the gangway, and Coxeter moved hastily to 
one side. He wished to save Bob Rendel the 


WHY THEY MARRIED 


259 


annoyance of recognizing him ; but then, 
with amazing suddenness, something happened 
which made Coxeter realize that after all 
women were even more inexplicable, unreason- 
able beings than even he had always known 
them to be. 

There came the quick patter of feet over the 
damp deck, and Mrs. Rendel was back again, 
close to where her husband was standing. 

‘‘ Tve made up my mind to stay on the boat,” 
she said quietly. ‘‘I think you are very un- 
wise, as well as very obstinate, to cross in this 
fog ; but if you won’t give way, then I’d rather 
be with you, and share the danger.” 

Bob Rendel laughed, not very kindly, and 
together they went across to the stair leading 
below. 

Coxeter opened his mouth to speak, then he 
closed it again. What a scene ! What a com- 
mentary on married life ! And these two 
people were supposed to be ‘‘in love” with 
one another. 

The little episode had shocked him, jarred 
his contentment. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go 
and smoke a pipe,” he said stiffly. 

Mrs. Archdale looked up. “Oh yes, please 
do,” and yet she felt suddenly bereft of some- 
thing warm, enveloping, kindly. The words 
formed themselves on her lips, “Don’t go too 


260 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

far away,” but she did not speak them aloud. 
But, as if in answer to her unspoken request, 
Coxeter called out, ‘‘I’m just here, close by, 
if you want anything,” and the commonplace 
words gave her a curious feeling of security, — 
a feeling, though she herself was unaware of it, 
which her own care and tenderness for others 
often afforded to those round whom she threw 
the sheltering mantle of her kindness. 

Perhaps because he was so near, John 
Coxeter remained in her thoughts. Almost 
alone of those human beings with whom life 
brought her in contact, he made no demand 
on her sympathy, and very little on her time. 
In fact, his first offer of marriage had taken 
her so much by surprise as to strike her as 
slightly absurd ; she had also felt it, at the 
time, to be an offence, for she had given him 
no right to encroach on the inner shrine of her 
being. 

Trying to account for what he had done, 
she had supposed that John Coxeter, being a 
man who evidently ordered his life according 
to some kind of system, had believed himself 
ripe for the honourable estate of marriage, 
and had chosen her as being “suitable.” 

When writing her cold letter of refusal, she 
had expected to hear within a few weeks of his 
engagement to some “nice” girl. But time 


WHY THEY MARRIED 261 

had gone by and nothing of the sort had hap- 
pened. Coxeter’s second offer, conveyed, as 
had been the first, in a formal letter, had 
found her in a very different mood, for it had 
followed very closely on that done by her of 
which he, John Coxeter, had so greatly dis- 
approved. She had been touched this second 
time and not at all offended, and gradually 
they had become friends. It was after his 
second offer that Nan began making use of 
him, not so much for herself as on behalf 
of other people. 

Nan Archdale led her life without reference 
to what those about her considered appropriate 
or desirable ; and years had gone by since 
the boldest busybody among them would have 
ventured a word of rebuke. Her social back- 
ground was composed of happy, prosperous 
people. They had but little to do with her, 
however, save when by some amazing mis- 
chance things went wrong with them ; when 
all went well they were apt to forget Nan Arch- 
dale. But John Coxeter, though essentially 
one of them by birth and instinct, and though 
it had been through them that she had first 
met him, never forgot her. 

Yet though they had become, in a sense, in- 
timate, he made on her none of those demands 
which endear a man to a woman. Living up 


262 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

on a pleasant tableland of self-approval, he 
never touched the heights or depths which 
go to form the relief map of most human 
beings’ lives. He always did his duty and 
generally enjoyed doing it, and he had no 
patience, only contempt, for those who shirked 
theirs. 

The passion of love, that greatest of the 
Protean riddles set by nature to civilized man 
and woman, played no part, or so Nan Arch- 
dale believed, in John Coxeter’s life. At the 
time she had received the letter in which he 
had first asked her to marry him, there had 
come to her, seen through the softening mists 
of time, a sharp, poignant remembrance of 
Jim Archdale’s offer, ‘Hf you won’t have me. 
Nan, I’ll do something desperate ! You’ll be 
sorry then ! ” So poor Jim Archdale had 
conquered her ; and looking back, when she 
recalled their brief married life, she forgot the 
selfishness and remembered only the love, the 
love which had made Jim so dependent on her 
presence and her sympathy. 

But if John Coxeter were incapable of love, 
she now knew him to be a good friend, and 
it was the friend — so she believed, and was 
grateful to him for it, — who had asked her 
to accept what he had quixotically supposed 
would be the shelter of his name when she 


WHY THEY MARRIED 263 

had done that thing of which he had dis- 
approved. 

To-night Nan could not help wondering if 
he would ever again ask her to marry him. 
She thought not — she hoped not. She told 
herself quite seriously that he was one of those 
men who are far happier unwedded. His 
standard, not so much of feminine virtue as of 
feminine behaviour, was too high. Take what 
had happened just now ; she had listened in- 
dulgently, tenderly, to the quarrel of the newly 
married couple, but she had seen the effect it 
had produced on John Coxeter. To him it had 
been a tragedy, and an ugly, ignoble tragedy 
to boot. 

The deck was now clear of passengers. Out 
in the open sea the fog had become so thick 
as to be impenetrable, and the boat seemed to 
be groping its way, heralded by the mournful 
screaming of the siren. Mrs. Archdale felt 
drowsy ; she leant back and closed her eyes. 
Coxeter was close by, puffing steadily at his 
pipe. She felt a pleasant sensation of security. 

She was roused, rather startled, by a man 
bending over her, while a voice said gruffly, 
‘‘I think, ma’am, that you’d better get into 
shelter. The deck saloon is close by. Allow 
me to lead you to it.” 


264 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Nan rose obediently. With the petty officer 
on one side and Coxeter on the other, she 
made a slow progress across the deck, and so 
to the large, brilliantly lighted saloon. There 
the fog had been successfully shut out, and 
some fifteen to twenty people sat on the velvet 
benches ; among them was the sweetmeat mer- 
chant to whom Nan had talked in the train. 

Coxeter found a comfortable place for Nan 
rather apart from the others, and sitting down 
he began to talk to her. The fog-horn, which 
was trumpeting more loudly, more insistently 
than ever, did not, he thought, interfere with 
their conversation as much as it might have 
done. 

‘‘We shan’t be there till morning,” Coxeter 
heard a man say, “till morning doth appear, 
at this rate ! ” 

“ I suppose we’re all right. There’s no real 
danger in a fog — not in the Channel ; there 
never has been an accident on the Channel 
passage — not an accident of any serious kind.” 

“Yes, there was — to one of the Dieppe 
boats — a very bad accident ! ” 

And then several of those present joined in 
the discussion. The man who had recalled 
the Dieppe boat accident could be heard, self- 
assertive, pragmatical, his voice raised above 
the voices around him. “I’ve been all over 


WHY THEY MARRIED 265 

the world in my time, and when I’m caught in 
a fog at sea I always get up, dress, and go up 
on deck, however sleepy I may be.” 

Coxeter, sitting apart by Nan’s side, listened 
with some amusement. His rather thin sense 
of humour was roused by the fact that the 
people around him were talking in so absurd 
a manner. This delay was not pleasant ; it 
might even mean that he would be a few hours 
late at the Treasury, a thing he had never once 
been after a holiday, for Coxeter prided him- 
self on his punctuality in the little as well as 
the great things of life. But, of course, all 
traffic in the Channel would be delayed by this 
fog, and his absence would be accounted for 
by the fact. 

Sitting there, close to Mrs. Archdale, with 
no one sufficiently near to attract her attention, 
or, what was more likely, to appeal to her for 
sympathy, he felt he could well afford to wait 
till the fog cleared off. As for the loud, 
insistent screaming of the siren, th^t sound 
which apparently got on the nerves of most 
of those present in the deck saloon, of course 
it was a disagreeable noise, but then they all 
knew it was a necessary precaution, so why 
make a fuss about it ? 

Coxeter turned and looked at his companion, 
and as he looked at her he felt a little posses- 


266 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
sive thrill of pride. Mrs. Archdale alone among 
the people there seemed content and at ease, 
indeed she was now smiling, smiling very 
brightly and sweetly, and, following the direc- 
tion of her eyes, he saw that they rested on a 
child lying asleep in its mother’s arms. . . . 

Perhaps after all it was a good thing that 
Nan was so detached from material things. 
Before that burst of foolish talk provoked by 
the fog, he had been speaking to her about a 
matter very interesting to himself— something 
connected with his work, something, by the 
way, of which he would not have thought of 
speaking to any other woman ; but then Mrs. 
Archdale, as Coxeter had good reason to know, 
was exceptionally discreet. . . . She had evi- 
dently been very much interested in all he 
had told her, and he had enjoyed the conver- 
sation. 

Coxeter became dimly conscious of what 
it would mean to him to have Nan to come 
back to when work, and the couple of hours 
he usually spent at his club, were over. Per- 
haps if Nan were waiting for him, he would 
not wish to stay as long as two hours at his 
club. But then of course he would want Nan 
all to himself. Jealous? Certainly not. He 
was far too sensible a man to feel jealous, 
but he would expect his wife to put him first — 


WHY THEY MARRIED 267 

a very long way in front of anybody else. It 
might be old-fashioned, but he was that sort 
of man. 

Coxeter’s thoughts leapt back into the 
present with disagreeable abruptness. Their 
Jewish fellow-traveller, the man who had 
thrust on Mrs. Archdale such unseemly con- 
fidences, had got up. He was now heading 
straight for the place where Mrs. Archdale 
was sitting. 

Coxeter quickly decided that the fellow must 
not be allowed to bore Mrs. Archdale. She 
was in his, Coxeter’s, care to-night, and he 
alone had a right to her interest and atten- 
tion. So he got up and walked down the 
saloon. To his surprise the other, on seeing 
him come near, stopped dead. “ I want to 
speak to you,” he said in a low voice, Mr. — 
er — Coxeter.” 

Coxeter looked at him, surprised, then re- 
minded himself that his full name, ‘‘John 
Coxeter,” was painted on his portmanteau. 
Also that Mrs. Archdale had called him “Mr. 
Coxeter ” at least once, when discussing that 
life-saving toy. Still, sharp, observant fellows, 
Jews ! One should always be on one’s guard 
with them. “ Yes ? ” he said interrogatively. 

“Well, Mr. Coxeter, I want to ask you to 


268 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
do me a little favour. The truth is I’ve just 
made my will — only a few lines — and I want 
you to be my second witness. I’ve no objec- 
tion, none in the world, to your seeing what I 
want you to witness.” 

He spoke very deliberately, as if he had pre- 
pared the form of words in which he made his 
strange request, and as he spoke he held out 
a sheet of paper apparently torn out of a note- 
book. “ I asked that gentleman over there ” — 
he jerked his thumb over his shoulder — ‘‘to 
be my first witness, and he kindly consented. 
I’d be much obliged if you’d sign your name 
just here. I’ll also ask you to take charge 
of it — only a small envelope, as you sec. 
It’s addressed to my mother. I’ve made her 
executor and residuary legatee.” 

Coxeter felt a strong impulse to refuse. He 
never mixed himself up with other people’s 
affairs ; he always refused to do so on prin- 
ciple. 

The man standing opposite to him divined 
what was passing through his mind, and broke 
in, “Only just while we’re on this boat. You 
can tear it up and chuck the pieces away once 
we’re on land again — ” he spoke nervously, 
and with contemptuous amazement Coxeter 
told himself that the fellow was afraid, 
“Surely you don’t think there’s any danger?” 


WHY THEY MARRIED 269 

he asked. “ D’you mean you've made this 
will because you think something may happen 
to the boat ? " 

The other nodded, ^‘Accidents do happen 
he smiled rather foolishly as he said the words, 
pronouncing the last one, as Coxeter noted 
with disapproval, ‘‘habben.” He was holding 
out a fountain pen ; he had an ingratiating 
manner, and Coxeter, to his own surprise, 
suddenly gave way. 

‘‘All right," he said, and taking the paper 
in his hand he glanced over it. He had no 
desire to pry into any man’s private affairs, 
but he wasn’t going to sign anything without 
first reading it. 

This odd little will consisted of only two 
sentences, written in a clear, clerkly hand 
The first bequeathed an annuity of ;^240 (six 
thousand francs) to Leonie Lenoir, of Rue 
Lafayette, Paris ; the second appointed the 
testator’s mother, Mrs. Solomon Munich, of 
Scott Terrace, Maida Vale, residuary legatee 
and executor. The will was signed “Victor 
Munich.’’ 

“Very well. I’ll sign it,’’ said Coxeter, at 
last, “and I’ll take charge of it till we’re 
on land. But look here — I won’t keep it 
a moment longer ! ’’ Then, perhaps a little 
ashamed of his ungraciousness, “I say, Mr. 


270 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Munich, if I were you I’d go below and take a 
stiffish glass of brandy and water. I once had 
a fright, I was nearly run over by a brewer’s 
dray at Charing Cross, and I did that — took 
some brandy I mean — ” he jerked the words 
out, conscious that the other’s sallow face had 
reddened. 

Then he signed his name at the bottom of 
the sheet of paper, and busied himself with 
putting the envelope carefully into his pocket- 
book. ‘‘There,” he said, with the slight 
supercilious smile which was his most marked 
physical peculiarity, but of which he was 
quite unconscious, “your will is quite safe 
now ! If we meet at Folkestone I’ll hand it you 
back ; if we miss one another in the — er — fog 
I’ll destroy it, as arranged.” 

He turned and began walking back to where 
Nan Archdale was sitting. What a very odd 
thing ! How extraordinary, how unexpected ! 

Then a light broke in on him. Why, of 
course, it was Nan who had brought this 
about ! She had touched up the Jew fellow’s 
conscience, frightened him about that woman 
— the woman who had so absurdly termed him 
her petit homme adore, That’s what came 
of mixing up in other people’s business ; but 
Coxeter’s eyes nevertheless rested on the 
sitting figure of his friend with a certain 


WHY THEY MARRIED 271 

curious indulgence. Odd, sentimental, sen- 
sitive creatures — women ! But brave — not lack- 
ing in moral courage anyway. 

As he came close up to her, Mrs. Archdale 
moved a little, making room for him to sit 
down by her. It was a graceful, welcoming 
gesture, and John Coxeter’s pulse began to 
quicken. ... He told himself that this also 
was an extraordinary thing — this journey with 
the woman he had wished to make his wife. He 
felt |ier to be so tantalizingly near, and yet in 
a sense so very far away. 

His eyes fell on her right hand, still encased 
in his large brown glove. As he had buttoned 
that glove, he had touched her soft wrist, and 
a wild impulse had come to him to bend yet a 
little closer and press his lips to the white 
triangle of yielding flesh. Of course he had 
resisted the temptation, reminding himself 
sternly that it was a caddish thing even to 
have thought of taking advantage of Nan's 
confiding friendliness. Yet now he wondered 
whether he had been a fool not to do it. Other 
men did those things. 

There came a dragging, grating sound, the 
boat shuddering as if in response. Coxeter 
had the odd sensation that he was being gently 
4)ut irresistibly pushed round, and yet he sat 


272 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
quite still, with nothing in the saloon changed 
in relation to himself. 

Someone near him exclaimed in a matter-of- 
fact voice, ‘‘We’ve struck; we’re on a rock.” 
Everyone stood up, and he saw an awful look 
of doubt, of unease, cross the faces of the men 
and women about him. 

The fog-horn ceased trumpeting, and there 
rose confused sounds, loud hoarse shouts and 
thin shrill cries, accompanying the dull thunder 
caused by the tramping of feet. Then the lights 
went out, all but the yellow flame of a small 
oil lamp which none of them had known was 
there. 

The glass-panelled door opened widely, and 
a burly figure holding a torch, which flared 
up in the still, moist air, was outlined against 
the steamy waves of fog. 

“ Come out of here ! ” he cried ; and then, as 
some people tried to push past him, “Steady, 
keep cool ! There’ll be room in the boats for 
every soul on board,” and Coxeter, looking at 
the pale, glistening face, told himself that the 
man was lying, and that he knew he lied. 

They stumbled out, one by one, and joined 
the great company which was now swarming 
over the upper deck, each man and woman 
forlorn and lonely as human beings must ever 
be when individually face to face with death. 


WHY THEY MARRIED 273 

Coxeter s right hand gripped firmly Mrs. 
Archdale’s arm. She was pressing closely to 
his side, shrinking back from the rough crowd 
surging about them, and he was filled with 
a fierce protective tenderness which left no 
room in his mind for any thought of self. His 
one thought was how to preserve his com- 
panion from contact with some of those about 
them ; wild-eyed, already distraught creatures, 
swayed with a terror which set them apart from 
the mass of quiet, apparently dazed people who 
stood patiently waiting to do what they were 
told. 

Close to Nan and Coxeter two men were 
talking Spanish ; they were gesticulating, and 
seemed to be disagreeing angrily as to what 
course to pursue. Presently one of them sud- 
denly produced a long knife which glittered 
in the torchlight ; with it he made a gesture as 
if to show the other that he meant to cut his 
way through the crowd towards the spot, now 
railed off with rope barriers, where the boats 
were being got ready for the water. 

With a quick movement Coxeter unbuttoned 
his cloak and drew Nan within its folds ; 
putting his arms round her he held her, loosely 
and yet how firmly clasped to his breast. ‘‘ I 
can’t help it,” he muttered apologetically. 
“ Forgive me ! ” As only answer she seemed to 

i8 


274 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
draw yet closer to him, and then she lay, still 
and silent, within his sheltering arms, — and at 
that moment he remembered to be glad he 
had not kissed her wrist. 

They two stood there, encompassed by a 
living wall, and yet how strangely alone. The 
fog had become less dense, or else the resin 
torches which flared up all about them cleared 
the air. 

From the captain’s bridge there whistled 
every quarter minute a high rocket, and soon 
from behind the wall of fog came in answer 
distant signals full of a mingled mockery and 
hope to the people waiting there. 

But for John Coxeter the drama of his own 
soul took precedence of that going on round 
him. Had he been alone he would have shared 
to the full the awful, exasperating feeling of 
being trapped, of there being nothing to be 
done, which possessed all the thinking minds 
about him. But he was not alone 

Nan, lying on his breast, seemed to pour 
virtue into him — to make him extraordinarily 
alive. Never had he felt death, extinction 
so near, and yet there seemed to be something 
outside himself, a spirit informing, uplifting, 
and conquering the flesh. 

Perceptions, sympathies, which had lain 
dormant during the whole of his thirty-nine 


WHY THEY MARRIED 275 

years of life, now sprang into being. His 
imagination awoke. He saw that it was this 
woman, now standing, with such complete 
trust in the niceness of his honour, heart to 
heart with him, who had made the best of that 
at once solitary and companioned journey which 
we call life. He had thought her to be a fool ; 
he now saw that, if a fool, she had been a divine 
fool, ever engaged while on her pilgrimage 
with the only things that now mattered. How 
great was the sum of her achievement com- 
pared with his. She had been a beacon dif- 
fusing light and warmth ; he a shadow among 
shadows. If to-night he were engulfed in the 
unknown, for so death was visioned by John 
Coxeter, who would miss him, who would feel 
the poorer for his sudden obliteration ? 

Coxeter came back into the present ; he 
looked round him, and for the first time he felt 
the disabling clutch of physical fear. The life- 
belts were being given out, and there came to 
him a horrid vision of the people round him as 
they might be an hour hence, drowned, heads 
down, legs up, done to death by those mon- 
strous yellow bracelets which they were now 
putting on with such clumsy, feverish eagerness. 

He was touched on the arm, and a husky 
voice, with which he was by now familiar, said 


276 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

urgently, ‘‘Mr. Coxeter — see, Uve brought 
your bag out of the saloon.” The man whose 
name he knew to be Victor Munich was stand- 
ing at his elbow. “ Look here, don’t take 

offence, Mr. Coxeter, I think better of the ” 

he hesitated — “the life-saver that you’ve got 
in this bag of yours than you do. I’m willing 
to give you a fancy price for it — what would 
you say to a thousand pounds? I daresay I 
shan’t have occasion to use it, but of course I 
take that risk.” 

Coxeter, with a quick, unobtrusive move- 
ment, released Mrs. Archdale. He turned and 
stared, not pleasantly, at the man who was 
making him so odd an offer. Damn the fellow’s 
impudence! “The life-saver is not for sale,” 
he said shortly. 

Nan had heard but little of the quick col- 
loquy. She did not connect it with the fact 
that the strong protecting arms which had 
been about her were now withdrawn, — and the 
tears came into her eyes. She felt both in a 
physical and in a spiritual sense suddenly 
alone. John Coxeter, the one human being 
who ever attempted to place himself on a more 
intimate, personal plane with her, happened, 
by a strange irony of fate, to be her com- 
panion in this awful adventure. But even he 
had now turned away from her. . . . 


WHY THEY MARRIED 277 

Nay, that was not quite true. He was again 
looking down at her, and she felt his hand 
groping for hers. As he found and clasped it, 
he made a movement as if he wished again to 
draw her towards him. Gently she resisted, 
and at once she felt that he responded to her 
feeling of recoil, and Nan, with a confused 
sense of shame and anger, was now hurt by 
his submission. Most men in his place would 
have made short work of her resistance, — would 
have taken her, masterfully, into the shelter of 
his arms. 

There came a little stir among the people on 
the deck. Coxeter heard a voice call out in 
would-be-cheery tones, ‘‘Now then, ladies! 
Please step out — ladies and children only. 
Look sharp ! A sailor close by whispered 
gruffly to his mate, “Til stick to her anyhow. 
No crowded boats for me ! I expect she’ll be 
a good hour settling — perhaps a bit longer.” 

As the first boat-load swung into the water, 
some of the people about them gave a little 
cheer. Coxeter thought, but he will never be 
quite sure, that in that cheer Nan joined. 
There was a delay of a minute ; then again the 
captain’s voice rang out, this time in a sharper, 
more peremptory tone, “Now, ladies, look 
sharp ! Come along, please.” 

Coxeter unclasped Nan’s hand — he did not 


278 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

know how tightly he had been holding it. He 
loved her. God, how he loved her ! And 
now he must send her away — away into the 
shrouding fog— away, just as he had found her. 
If what he had overheard were true, might he 
not be sending Nan to a worse fate than that 
of staying to take the risk with him ? 

But the very man who had spoken so doubt- 
fully of the boats just now came forward. 
‘‘You’d best hurry your lady forward, sir. 
There’s no time to lose.” There was an 
anxious, warning note in the rough voice. 

“You must go now,” said Coxeter heavily. 
“I shall be all right, Mrs. Archdale,” for she 
was making no movement forward. “There’ll 
be plenty of room for the men in the next 
boat. I’d walk across the deck with you, but 
I’m afraid they won’t allow that.” He spoke 
in his usual matter-of-fact, rather dry tone, 
and Nan looked up at him doubtingly. Did 
he really wish her to leave him ? 

Flickering streaks of light fell on his face. 
It was convulsed with feeling, — with what had 
become an agony of renunciation. She with- 
drew her eyes, feeling a shamed, exultant pang 
of joy. “I’ll wait till there’s room for you, 
too, Mr. Coxeter.” She breathed rather than 
actually uttered the words aloud. 

Another woman standing close by was saying 


WHY THEY MARRIED 279 

the same thing to her companion, but in far 
more eager, more vociferous tones. “Is it 
likely that I should go away now and leave you. 
Bob ? Of course not — don’t be ridiculous ! ” 
But the Rendels pushed forward, and finally 
both found places in this, the last boat but one. 

Victor Munich was still standing close to 
John Coxeter, and Mrs. Archdale, glancing at 
his sallow, terror-stricken face, felt a thrill of 
generous pity for the man. “Mr. Coxeter,” 
she whispered, “do give him that life-saver! 
Did he not ask you for it just now? We don’t 
want it.” 

Coxeter bent down and unstrapped his port- 
manteau. He handed to Nan the odd, toy-like 
thing by which he had set so little store, but 
which now he let go with a touch of reluctance. 
He saw her move close to the man whose name 
she did not know. “Here is the life-saver,” 
she said kindly; “I heard you say you would 
like it.” 

“But you?” — he stammered — “how about 
you ? ” 

“ I don’t want it. I shall be all right. I 
shouldn’t put it on in any case.” 

He took it then, avidly ; and they saw him 
go forward with a quick, stealthy movement to 
the place where the last boat was being got 
ready for the water. 


280 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

‘‘There’s plenty of room for you and the 
lady now, sir ! ” Coxeter hurried Nan across 
the deck, but suddenly they were pushed 
roughly back. The rope barriers had been 
cut, and a hand-to-hand struggle was taking 
place round the boat, — an ugly scrimmage to 
which as little reference as possible was made 
at the wreck inquiry afterwards. To those 
who looked on it was a horrible, an unnerving 
sight ; and this time Coxeter with sudden 
strength took Nan back into his arms. He 
felt her trembling, shuddering against him, — 
what she had just seen had loosed fear from 
its leash. 

“I’m frightened,” she moaned. “Oh, Mr. 
Coxeter, I’m so horribly frightened of those 
men ! Are they all gone ? ” 

“Yes,” he said grimly, “most of them 
managed to get into the boat. Don’t be 
frightened. I think we’re safer here than we 
should be with those ruffians.” 

Another man would have found easy terms 
of endearment and comfort for almost any 
woman so thrust on his protection and care, 
but the very depth of Coxeter’s feeling seemed 
to make him dumb, — that and his anguished 
fear lest by his fault, by his own want of quick- 
ness, she had perhaps missed her chance of 
being saved. 


WHY THEY MARRIED 281 

But what he was lacking another man sup- 
plied. This was the captain, and Nan, listen- 
ing to the cheering, commonplace words, felt 
her nerve, her courage, come back. 

‘‘Stayed with your husband?” he said, 
coming up to them. “Quite right, mum! 
Don’t you be frightened. Look at me and 
my men, we’re not frightened — not a bit of 
it I My boat will last right enough for us to 
be picked off ten times over. I tell you quite 
fairly and squarely, if I’d my wife aboard I’d ’a 
kept her with me. I’d rather be on this boat 
of mine than I would be out there, on the open 
water, in this fog.” But as he walked back to 
the place where stood the rocket apparatus, 
Coxeter heard him mutter, “The brutes I Not 
all seconds or thirds either. I wish I had ’em 
here. I’d give ’em what for ! ” 

Later, when reading the narratives supplied 
by some of the passengers who perforce had 
remained on the doomed boat, Coxeter was 
surprised to learn how many thrilling experi- 
ences he had apparently missed during the 
long four hours which elapsed before their 
rescue. And yet the time of waiting and sus- 
pense probably appeared as long to him as 
it did to any of the fifty odd souls who 
stayed, all close together, on the upper deck 


282 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


waiting with what seemed a stolid resignation 
for what might next befall them. 

From the captain, Coxeter, leaving Mrs. 
Archdale for a moment, had extracted the 
truth. They had drifted down the French 
coast. They were on a dangerous reef of 
rock, and the rising of the wind, the lifting 
of the fog, for which they all looked so eagerly, 
might be the signal for the breaking up of the 
boat. On the other hand, the boat might hold 
for days. It was all a chance. 

Coxeter kept what he had learnt to himself, 
but he was filled with a dull, aching sensation 
of suspense. His remorse that he had not 
hurried Mrs. Archdale into one of the first 
boats became almost intolerable. Why had he 
not placed her in the care even of the Jew, Victor 
Munich, who was actually seated in the last 
boat before the scramble round it had begun ? 

More fortunate than he, Mrs. Archdale found 
occupation in tending the few forlorn women 
who had been thrust back. He watched her 
moving among them with an admiration no 
longer unwilling ; she looked bright, happy, 
almost gay, and the people to whom she 
talked, to whom she listened, caught some- 
thing of her spirit. Coxeter would have liked 
to follow her example, but though he saw that 
some of the men round him were eager to talk 


WHY THEY MARRIED 283 

and to discuss the situation, his tongue refused 
to form words of commonplace cheer. 

When with the coming of the dawn the fog 
lifted, Nan came up to Coxeter as he stood 
apart, while the other passengers were crowd- 
ing round a fire which had been lit on the 
open deck. Together in silence they watched 
the rolling away of the enshrouding mist ; to- 
gether they caught sight of the fleet of French 
fishing boats from which was to come succour. 

As he turned and clasped her hand, he heard 
her say, more to herself than to him, “I did 
not think we should be saved.” 


Ill 

John Coxeter was standing in the library 
of Mrs. Archdale’s home in Wimpole Street. 
Two nights had elapsed since their arrival in 
London, and now he was to see her for the 
first time since they had parted on the Charing 
Cross platform, in the presence of the crowd 
of people comprised of unknown sympathisers, 
acquaintances, and friends who had come to 
meet them. 

He looked round him with a curious sense 
of unfamiliarity. The colouring of the room 
was grey and white, with touches of deep-toned 


284 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

mahogany. It was Nan’s favourite sitting- 
room, though it still looked what it had been 
ever since Nan could remember it — a man’s 
room. In his day her father had been a col- 
lector of books, medals, and engravings con- 
nected with the severer type of eighteenth- 
century art and letters. 

In a sense this room always pleased Coxeter’s 
fancy, partly because it implied a great many 
things that money and even modern culture 
cannot buy. But now, this morning — for it 
was still early, and he was on his way to his 
office for the first time since what an aunt of 
his had called his mysterious preservation from 
death-— he seemed to see everything in this 
room in another light. Everything which had 
once been to him important had become, if 
not worthless, then unessential. 

He had sometimes secretly wondered why 
Mrs. Archdale, possessed as she was of con- 
siderable means, had not altered the old house, 
had not made it pretty as her friends’ houses 
and rooms were pretty ; but to-day he no 
longer wondered at this. His knowledge of 
the fleetingness of life, and of the unimport- 
ance of all he had once thought so important, 
was too vividly present. . . . 

She came into the room, and he saw that she 
was dressed in a more feminine kind of garment 


WHY THEY MARRIED 285 

than that in which he generally saw her. It was 
white, and though girdled with a black ribbon, 
it made her look very young, almost girlish. 

For a moment they looked at one another 
in constraint. Mrs. Archdale also had 
altered, altered far less than John Coxeter, 
but she was aware, as he was not aware, of the 
changes which long nearness to death had 
brought her ; and for almost the first time in 
her life she was more absorbed in her own 
sensations than in those of the person with her. 

Seeing John Coxeter standing there waiting 
for her, looking so like his old self, so abso- 
lutely unchanged, confused her and made her 
feel desperately shy. 

She held out her hand, but Coxeter scarcely 
touched it. After having held her so long in 
his arms, he did not care to take her hand in 
formal greeting. She mistook his gesture, 
thought that he was annoyed at having re- 
ceived no word from her since they had parted. 
The long day in between had been to Nan 
Archdale full of nervous horror, for relations, 
friends, acquaintances had come in troops to 
see her, and would not be denied. 

Already she had received two or three angry 
notes from people who thought they loved her, 
and who were bitterly incensed that she had 
refused to see them when they had rushed to 


286 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

hear her account of an adventure which might 
so easily have happened to them. She made 
the mistake of confusing Coxeter with these 
selfish people. 

“I am so sorry,” she said in a low voice, ‘‘that 
when you called yesterday I was supposed to 
be asleep. I have been most anxious to see 
you ” — she waited a moment and then added 
his name — “Mr. Coxeter. I knew that you 
would have the latest news, and that you would 
tell it me.” 

“ There is news,” he said, “of all the boats ; 
good news — with the exception of the last 

boat ” His voice sounded strangely to 

himself. 

“ Oh, but that must be all right too, Mr. 
Coxeter ! The captain said the boats might 
drift about for a long time.” 

Coxeter shook his head. “ I’m afraid 
not,” he said. “In fact” — he waited a mo- 
ment, and she came close up to him. 

“Tell me,” she commanded in a low voice, 
“tell me what you know. They say I ought 
to put it all out of my mind, but I can think of 
nothing else. Whenever I close my eyes I see 
the awful struggle that went on round that last 
boat!” She gave a quick, convulsive sob. 

Coxeter was dismayed. How wildly she 
spoke, how unlike herself she seemed to-day — 


WHY THEY MARRIED 287 

how unlike what she had been during the 
whole of their terrible ordeal. 

Already that ordeal had become, to him, 
something to be treasured. There is no lack 
of physical courage in the breed of English- 
men to which John Coxeter belonged. Pain, 
entirely unassociated with shame, holds out 
comparatively little terror to such as he. 
There was something rueful in the look he 
gave her. 

‘‘The last boat was run down in the fog, ’’ he 
said briefly. “Some of the bodies have been 
washed up on the French coast.” 

She looked at him apprehensively. “Any 
of the people we had spoken to ? Any of those 
who were with us in the railway carriage ? ” 

“ Yes, I’m sorry to say that one of the bodies 
washed up is that of the person who sat next 
to you.” 

“That poor French boy ? ” 

Coxeter shook his head. “ No, no — he’s all 
right ; at least I believe he’s all right. It — the 
body I mean — was that of your other neigh- 
bour ; ” he added, unnecessarily, “the man who 
made sweets.” 

And then for the first time Coxeter saw Nan 
Archdale really moved out of herself. What he 
had just said had had the power to touch her, to 
cause her greater anguish than anything which 


288 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


had happened during the long hours of terror 
they had gone through. She turned and, moving 
as if blindly, pressed her hand to her face as 
if to shut out some terrible and pitiful sight. 

‘‘Ah!” she exclaimed in a low voice, “I 
shall never forgive myself over that 1 Do 
you know I had a kind of instinct that I ought 
to ask that man the name, the address ” — her 
voice quivered and broke — “of his friend — 
of that poor young woman who saw him off 
at the Paris station.” 

Till this moment Coxeter had not known 
that Nan had been aware of what had, to him- 
self, been so odious, so ridiculous, and so gro- 
tesque, a scene. But now he felt differently 
about this, as about everything else that 
touched on the quick of life. For the first 
time he understood, even sympathized with. 
Nan’s concern for that majority of human 
beings who are born to suffering and who are 
bare to the storm. . . . 

“Look here,” he said awkwardly, “don’t 
be unhappy. It’s all right. That man spoke 
to me on the boat — he did what you wished, 
he made a will providing for that woman ; I 
took charge of it for him. As a matter of fact 
I went and saw his old mother yesterday. 
She behaved splendidly.” 

“Then the life-saver was no good after all ? ’ 


WHY THEY MARRIED 


289 


“ No good,’* he said, and he avoided looking 
at her. ‘‘At least so it would seem, but who 
can tell ? ” 

Nan’s eyes filled with tears ; something 
beckoning, appealing seemed to pass from her 
to him. . . . 

The door suddenly opened. 

“Mrs. Eaton, ma’am. She says she only 
heard what happened, to-day, and she’s sure 
you will see her.” 

Before Mrs. Archdale could answer, a woman 
had pushe'd her way past the maid into the 
room. “ Nan ? Poor darling ! What an awful 
thing ! I am glad I came so early ; now you 
will be able to tell me all about it ! ” 

The visitor, looking round her, saw John 
Coxeter, and seemed surprised. Fortunately 
she did not know him, and, feeling as if, had 
he stayed, he must have struck the woman, 
he escaped from the room. 

As Coxeter went through the hall, filled 
with a perplexity and pain very alien from his 
positive nature, a good-looking, clean-shaven 
man, who gave him a quick measured glance, 
passed by. With him there had been no 
parleying at the door as in Coxeter ’s own case. 

“Who’s that?” he asked, with a scowl, of 
the servant. 

19 


290 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

‘‘The doctor, sir,” and he felt absurdly re- 
lieved. “We sent for him yesterday, for 
Mrs. Archdale seemed very bad last night.” 
The servant dropped her voice, “It’s the 
doctor, sir, as says Mrs. Archdale oughtn’t 
to see visitors. You see it was in all the 
papers about the shipwreck, sir, and of course 
Mrs. Archdale’s friends all come and see her 
to hear about it. They’ve never stopped. 
The doctor, he says that she ought to have 
stayed in bed and been quite quiet. But 
what would be the good of that, seeing she 
don’t seem able to sleep? I suppose you’ve 
not suffered that way yourself, sir? ” 

The young woman was staring furtively at 
Coxeter, but, noting his cold manner and im- 
perturbable face, she felt that he was indeed 
a disappointing hero of romance — not at 
all the sort of gentleman with whom one 
would care to be shipwrecked, if it came to a 
matter of choice. 

“ No,” he said solemnly, “ I can’t say that I 
have.” 

He looked thoughtfully out into what had 
never been to him a “long unlovely street,” 
and which just now was the only place in the 
world where he desired to stay. Coxeter, 
always so sure of himself, and of w^hat was 
the best and wisest thing to do in every circum- 


WHY THEY MARRIED 291 

stance of life, felt for the first time unable to 
cope with a situation presented to his notice. 

As he was hesitating, a carriage drove up, 
and a footman came forward with a card, 
while the occupant of the carriage called out, 
making anxious inquiries as to Mrs. Arch- 
dale's condition, and promising to call again 
the same afternoon. 

Coxeter suddenly told himself that it behoved 
him to see the doctor, and ascertain from him 
whether Mrs. Archdale was really ill. 

He crossed the street, and began pacing up 
and down, and unconsciously he quickened 
his steps as he went over every moment of 
his brief interview with Nan. All that was him- 
self — and there was a good deal more of John 
Coxeter than even he was at all aware of — had 
gone out to her in a rapture of memory and 
longing, but she, or so it seemed to him, had 
purposely made herself remote. 

At last, after what seemed a very long time, 
the doctor came out of Mrs. Archdale^s house 
and began walking quickly down the street. 

Coxeter crossed over and touched him on 
the arm. ‘‘ If I may,” he said, ‘‘ I should like 
a word with you. I want to ask you — I 
mean I trust that Mrs. Archdale is recovering 
from the effect of the terrible experience she 
went through the other night." He spoke 


292 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 


awkwardly, stiffly. ‘‘I saw her for a few 
minutes just before you came, and I was sorry 
to find her very unlike herself.” 

The doctor went on walking ; he looked 
coldly at Coxeter. 

‘‘It’s a great pity that Mrs. Archdale’s 
friends can’t leave her alone ! As to being 
unlike herself, you and I would probably be 
very unlike ourselves if we had gone through 
what this poor lady had just gone through ! ” 

“ You see, I was with her on the boat. We 
were not travelling together, ” Coxeter corrected 
himself hastily, “ I happened to meet her merely 
on the journey. My name is Coxeter.” 

The other man’s manner entirely altered. 
He slackened in his quick walk. “ I beg 
your pardon,” he said; “of course I had no 
notion who you were. She says you saved 
her life ! That but for you she would have 
been in that boat — the boat that was lost.” 

Coxeter tried to say something in denial of 
this surprising statement, but the doctor 
hurried on, “ I may tell you that I’m very 
worried about Mrs. Archdale — in fact seriously 
concerned at her condition. If you have any 
influence with her, I beg you to persuade 
her to refuse herself to the endless busybodies 
who want to hear her account of what 
happened. She won’t have a trained nurse, 


WHY THEY MARRIED 293 

but there ought to be someone on guard — a 
human watchdog warranted to snarl and bite ! 

‘‘ Do you think she ought to go away from 
London ? ’’ asked Coxeter in a low voice. 

“ No, I don’t think that — at least not for the 
present,” the medical man frowned thought- 
fully. ‘‘ What she wants is to be taken out of 
herself. If I could prescribe what I believe 
would be the best thing for her, I should ad- 
vise that she go away to some other part of 
London with someone who will never speak to 
her of what happened, and yet who will always 
listen to her when she wants to talk about it — 
some sensible, commonplace person who could 
distract her mind without tiring her, and who 
would make her do things she has never done 
before. If she was an ordinary smart lady, I 
should prescribe philanthropy” — he made a 
slight grimace — ‘‘make her go and see some 
of my poorer patients — come into contact with 
a little real trouble. But that would be no 
change to Mrs. Archdale. No ; what she wants 
is someone who will force her to be selfish — 
who will take her up the Monument one day, 
and to a music-hall the next, motor her out to 
Richmond Park, make her take a good 
long walk, and then sit by the sofa and hold 

her hand if she feels like crying ” He 

stopped, a little ashamed of his energy. 


294 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

“Thank you/' said Coxeter very seriously, 
“I’m much obliged to you for telling me this. 
I can see the sense of what you say.” 

“You know, in spite of her quiet manner, 
Mrs. Archdale’s a nervous, sensitive woman ” 
— the doctor was looking narrowly at Coxeter 
as he spoke. 

“She was perfectly calm and — and very 
brave at the time ” 

“That means nothing ! Pluck’s not a matter 
of nerve — it ought to be, but it isn’t ! But I 
admit you’re a remarkable example of the 
presence of the one coupled with the absence 
of the other. You don’t seem a penny the 
worse, and yet it must have been a very terrible 
experience.” 

“ You see, it came at the end of my holiday,” 
said Coxeter gravely, “and, as a matter of 
fact” — he hesitated — “I feel quite well, in 
fact, remarkably well. Do you see any objec- 
tion to my calling again, I mean to-day, on 
Mrs. Archdale ? I might put what you have 
just said before her.” 

“ Yes, do ! Do that by all means ! Seeing 
how well you have come through it ” — the doc- 
tor could not help smiling a slightly satirical 
smile — “ ought to be a lesson to Mrs. Archdale. 
It ought to show her that after all she is perhaps 
making a great deal of fuss about nothing.” 


WHY THEY MARRIED 295 

‘‘Hardly that,” said Coxeter with a 
frown. 

They had now come to the corner of Queen 
Anne Street. He put out his hand hesitatingly, 
the doctor took it, and, oddly enough, held it 
for a moment while he spoke. 

“Think over what I’ve said, Mr. Coxeter. 
It’s a matter of hours. Mrs. Archdale ought to 
be taken in hand at once.” Then he went off, 
crossing the street. “Pity the man’s such a 
dry stick,” he said to himself; “now’s his 
chance, if he only knew it ! ” 

John Coxeter walked straight on. He had 
written the day before to say that he would be 
at his office as usual this morning, but now the 
fact quite slipped his mind. 

Wild thoughts were surging through his 
brain ; they were running away with him and 
to such unexpected places ! 

The Monument? He had never thought of 
going up the Monument ; he would formerly 
have thought it a sad waste of time, but now 
the Monument became to John Coxeter a place 
of pilgrimage, a spot of secret healing. A 
man had once told him that the best way to 
see the City was at night, but that if you were 
taking a lady you should choose a Sunday 
morning, and go there on the top of a ’bus. 
He had thought the man who said this very 


296 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 
eccentric, but now he remembered the advice 
and thought it well worth following. 

By the time Coxeter turned into Cavendish 
Square he had travelled far further than the 
Monument. He was in Richmond Park ; Nan’s 
hand was thrust through his arm, as it had been 
while they had watched the first boat fill slowly 
with the women and children. 

To lovers who remember, the streets of a 
great town, far more than country roads and 
lanes, hold over the long years precious, poig- 
nant memories, for a background of stones 
and mortar has about it a character of perman- 
ence which holds captive and echoes the scenes 
and words enacted and uttered there. 

Coxeter has not often occasion to go the 
little round he went that morning, but when 
some accidental circumstance causes him to do 
so, he finds himself again in the heart of that 
kingdom of romance from which he was so long 
an alien, and of which he has now become a 
naturalized subject. As most of us know, 
many ways lead to the kingdom of romance ; 
Coxeter found his way there by a water-way. 

And so it is that when he reaches the turning 
into Queen Anne Street there seems to rise 
round him the atmosphere of what Londoners 
call the City — the City as it is at night, uncannily 


WHY THEY MARRIED 297 

deserted save for the ghosts and lovers who 
haunt its solitary thoroughfares after the bustle 
of the day is stilled. It was then that he and 
Nan first learnt to wander there. From there 
he travels on into golden ^unlight ; he is again 
in Richmond Park as it was during the 
whole of that beautiful October. 

Walkingup the westside of Cavendish Square, 
Coxeter again becomes absorbed in his great 
adventure, — a far greater adventure than that 
with which his friends and acquaintances still 
associate his name. With some surprise, even 
perhaps with some discomfiture, he sees him- 
self — for he has not wholly cast out the old Adam 
— he sees himself as he was that memorable 
morning, carried, that is, wholly out of his 
usual wise, ponderate self. Perhaps he even 
wonders a little how he could ever have found 
courage to do what he did — he who has always 
thought so much, in a hidden way, of the 
world s opinion and of what people will say. 

He could still tell you which lamp-post he 
was striding past when he realized, with a 
thrill of relief, that in any case Nan Archdale 
would not treat him as would almost certainly 
do one of those women whom he had honoured 
with his cold approval something less than a 
week ago. Any one of those women would 
have regarded what he was now going to ask 


298 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR 

Nan to do as an outrage on the conventions 
of life. But Nan Archdale would be guided 
only by what she herself thought right and 
seemly. . . . 

And then, as he turns again into Wimpole 
Street, as he comes near to what was once his 
wife’s house, his long steady stride becomes 
slower. Unwillingly he is living again those 
doubtful moments when he knocked at her 
door, when he gave the surprised maid the 
confused explanation that he had a message 
from the doctor for Mrs. Archdale. He hears 
the young woman say, ‘‘Mrs. Archdale is just 
going out, sir. The doctor thought she ought 
to take a walk and his muttered answer, “ I 
won’t keep her a moment. ...” 

Again he feels the exultant, breathless thrill 
which seized him when she slipped, neither of 
them exactly knew how, into his arms, and 
when the sentences he had prepared, the argu- 
ments he meant to use, in his hurried rush up 
the long street, were all forgotten. He hears 
himself imploring her to come away with him 
now, at once. Is she not dressed to go out? 
Instinct teaches him for the first time to make 
to her the one appeal to which she ever 
responds. He had meant to tell her what the 
doctor had said — to let that explain his great 
temerity — but instead he tells her only that he 


WHY THEY MARRIED 299 

wants her, that he cannot go on living apart from 
her. Is there any good reason why they should 
not start now, this moment, for Doctors’ 
Commons, in order to see how soon they 
can be married ? 

So it is that when John Coxeter stands 
in Wimpole Street, so typical a Londoner be- 
longing to the leisured and conventional class 
that none of the people passing by even glance 
his way, he lives again through the immortal 
moment when she said, “ Very well.” 

To this day, so transforming is the miracle 
of love. Nan Coxeter believes that during 
their curious honeymoon it was she who was 
taking care of John, not he of her. 



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